On
Day 3, we will be a conducting a cyber safety workshop for students.
The workshop will address both middle school and high school students
and educate them on how to safely surf the internet.
We
chatted with Debarati Halder, the managing director of Center for
Cyber Victim Counselling to get her thoughts on cyber safety,
parenting internet-savvy children and more.
Debarati
is an advocate and legal researcher. She is presently working on her
PhD research at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU),
Bangalore. She is the author of the book Cyber
crime and the Victimization of Women: Laws, Rights, and Regulations.
Her published works can be viewed at http://www.debaratihalder.co.nr/
She is also the founding secretary of South Asian Society of
Criminology and Victimology (http://www.sascv.org/)
Since my main interest is cyber crime against women, I have seen that women most often suffer from breach of privacy and defamation in the cyber space. This happens mostly through creation of fake profiles, using pictures for wrong reasons and victimising the already victims like spreading rape scenes or sexual molestation scenes through internet. The recent addition is of course trolling and adult bullying targeting women in the social media like Tweeter.
However, in general terms, both men and women in India suffer hugely from phishing attack. Losing money by believing in the lottery mails, fake job promises etc are big problem in India for both men and women.
What do people need to be aware of when surfing the internet?
It depends upon what you are surfing for. But in general my tips are as follows:
1.
Do not give your personal details to any website unless you are sure
that it is a trustworthy site.
2.
Do not refer any unknown person/site to your friend. You may actually
be doing harm by exposing your friend to danger.
3.
Beware of malicious sites. Once clicked into, your computer may get
‘contaminated’.
4.
Especially when children are surfing, adult monitoring must be there
as they may be suddenly be exposed to unwanted material.
For
parents, do you have pointers on what they should be doing to protect
their children in cyber space?
1.
Monitor, but don’t be too fussy. Most children will love to
‘experiment’ with the prohibited staff and internet is no
exception.
2.
With usage of gaming sites, see that the children do not misuse
parents' ids if he/she is under age. In case he/she has her own ID,
tell them to be cautious.
3.
Have a family internet time. This way, the children can have fun
learning and parents can monitor children’s surfing too.
4.
Use child protective softwares and be your child’s friend in the
social media.
5.
If some untowardly thing happens, don’t scold the child, instead
encourage her to contact the police. From our organisation at Centre
for Cyber victim Counselling (www.cybervictims.org)
we provide help and counselling and we encourage adults and children
to contact us in need.
You
can also go through our blogs @ http://cybervictims.blogspot.in/,
http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.in/
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