For staff or students with families or younger people in their lives, this week is all about protecting the younger people in your life. We’ll cover how to keep kids safe online, including the growing risk from AI tools that can misuse photos, plus links to trusted resources for parents.
We recently joined the Cyber Trust Community Group, facilitated by the Cyber and Fraud Hub. The group shares threat intelligence across sectors to help strengthen our defences. But that’s not all the Hub offers. It has extensive resources on common scams, how to protect yourself, and what to do if your data has been leaked. It also has excellent guidance on protecting older people from fraud and on keeping children safe online, which is what this blog focuses on.
You may be wondering why we’re highlighting children’s online safety. Good cyber habits aren’t just for work or studies, and many of us have children or young people in our lives. At the risk of sounding like a millennial, social media and constant connectivity weren’t part of growing up the way they are for kids today. Remember when Facebook was just for university students? No? Just me, then. Instagram was just for sharing pictures, and nobody competed for likes, shares, reposts and followers. It’s a different game now.
Gaming has changed too. There are so many games aimed at children, many with features that probably shouldn’t be available to them. The good news is that the Cyber and Fraud Hub’s guide to keeping children safe online offers practical, tangible advice to help young people stay safe, and much of it applies to us too, to be fair. It covers social media platforms, browsers, devices, specific games, grooming and oversharing, as well as how to get the most out of parental controls and privacy settings while still letting kids be kids.
AI tools can now take ordinary photos posted online and manipulate them into fake images, including harmful or explicit ones. It’s worth thinking about who can see the photos you and your children share, keeping accounts private where possible, and avoiding details like school uniforms or locations that make a child identifiable.
Another fantastic resource is KidsNClicks, which has guides for each age group and ratings for TV shows, apps and games. It’s not about guilt-tripping anyone, just helping parents and carers make informed decisions. There’s even a section on children using AI and how to approach it.
Finally, CyberSafe Scotland is another excellent resource on keeping children safe online.