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Kid safety is assured, but do not ignore caution

Dubai - The UAE is a relatively safe place for young children, but parents need to be be careful at every step, be it online or offline.

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A stranger asks your child if he or she wants a ride home from school. Given that children trust easily, there are only two outcomes to this incident. Most strangers kids interact with within their neighbourhoods are harmless, and given this assumption, your child will get home safe.
However, the possibility of the stranger being a predator, stalker, or paedophile cannot be overruled. What happens to your kid then?
Even though incidents of violent crimes against children are relatively low in the UAE, experts in the country are stressing on placing stringent safety measures that assure the protection of young children. Apart from physical stalkers, experts are now also placing more importance on protecting children from cyber stalkers.
Khaleej Times spoke to some key school authorities, parents, psychologists, and cyber security experts, who identified potential risks faced by children and how to keep children safe if they are faced with these risks. In Dubai, there have been three separate incidents of strangers trying to lure or abduct children from their school campuses, all of which was extensively covered in the local media.

A school-going child spends a majority of his time away from his parents.
"My 9-year-old son Adarsh is in school from 7am and returns home at 4pm . Some days he stays back for sports (or) extra-curricular activities, and some days he goes for music lessons," said Sheila Mathias, a Dubai-based parent of two children. "But I am constantly communicating with the school of his comings and goings and I have trained him not to go wandering off with people he is not familiar with ... You never know what could happen."
Potential risks
Aamnah Hussain, a psychologist and parenting expert for Fun City UAE, said children are faced with several risks in a day. "One of the most common threats children face in the UAE are from bullies," said Hussain.
These bullies are usually a few years older or sometimes contemporaries of the children. "There is also the problem of sexual predators, abductors, and other paedophiles," she added.
However, in the cyber world, the game online predators play is far more complex.
Ellie Puddle, founder and CEO of Future Digital, said schools in the UK have also begun monitoring the students' online activity for radicalisation. A UK-based company that provides the most dynamic e-safety solutions for the rapidly changing digital and ICT environment, Future Digital is working with some schools in the UAE to instal security software in the school's ICT.
"One of the biggest threats children face online is when they establish contact with someone who appears to be a contemporary, but isn't. Children are being groomed by people who are much older than what they claim to be," added Puddle.
She said that cyber bullying is also a very relevant threat, where children share content of other students, like images or videos, without permission.

Recognising stalkers
"We just started a project with the Taleem schools in Dubai where a software keeps track on the different devices used by the school's students and teachers, looking out for keywords that are potentially harmful," said Puddle.
"Our software monitors certain words and phrases, takes a little screenshot if a word or phrase is flagged and necessary authorities are alerted in case there is reason to be worried."
The software takes screen grabs when topics such as self harm, suicide, drugs, pornography, and gambling come into play, for example. Highlighted keywords then appear on the school's ICT dashboard, thereby notifying adults as well as other children, who are then made aware about the use of such words in conversations.
"In a real-life situation, children should be told by parents not to reveal their name, age, or their location to complete strangers," said Simon Jodrell, head of primary at Dubai British School (DBS).

Top 4 Internet safety tips  1. Avoid malware and adware Many free apps and social sites survive on adware, which means that your child is getting exposed to more advertising than you might be comfortable with. That, coupled with the ease of in-app purchasing, should give parents reason to monitor children's time online and set rules on which apps are allowed. Parents need to explain to their kids how so-called "free" apps work, and they could accidentally spend real money online without realising it 2. Report bully behaviour Increasingly, Internet safety for kids concerns online bullying. According to a report by DoSomething.org, almost 43 per cent of kids have been victims of online bullying, yet only one in 10 victims will end up reporting the behavior to an adult. Parents need to talk to their kids about what online bully behaviour is, and let their kids know that they can report a bully without fear that their own computer privileges will be taken away, or that they will end up being punished. Parents can help guide their children to be wary about opening emails, reading posts or tweets from people they don't know, or joining in on a war of cyber-words. 3. Recognise social networks It seems like even very young children are on social media, lured in part because all their friends have social media accounts. No kid wants to feel left out, but parents need to do their due diligence and decide if a social site is age-appropriate for their child. Some sites, for example, don't filter adult content, meaning that all users - even children - have access to it. Another concern is in how much information a child might be sharing in an online social profile. Parents need to convey what information is off-limits for public posting. Even something as innocuous as the family pet's name could be problematic, especially if the pet's name is used in a challenge question for password recovery. 4. Combat identity theft It's become more common for schools and other child-centric organisations to collect and store information about kids. Although there may be legitimate reasons to collect this type of digital information, a parent always has the right to question what kinds of identifying information is really needed, and how the information about their child will be stored. Children should be coached right from the start regarding keeping usernames and passwords secret from everyone except their parents. But the lesson doesn't stop there - parents should tell kids not to share any identifying information online, like birth date, hometown, school name and the like. Source: Kaspersky

dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com