Online Safety and Cybercrime

Online safety is an umbrella term for promoting the safeguarding of children and young people when using any device over the internet. The online world can add great value to the personal lives and education of children and young people, but it also presents risks and threats. Technology is always evolving, and with developments in virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI), there are major shifts in how young people interact with the world.

Many adults believe that young people know more about technology than them, but there’s more to technology than the technology itself. The internet, now more than ever, is about relationships, choices and respect. Its proper usage requires wisdom, positive personal values, emotional intelligence and self-reflection. This is where all settings working with children and young people, regardless of age, can take a lead.

Research by the UK Safer Internet Centre (UKSIC) suggests young people are excited about the changes in technology, but also feel they need more conversations and support regarding staying safe online.

• Nearly three-quarters (74%) of parents and carers, and just under half (45%) of children have worries about safety as developments with artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) and new social media apps continue to accelerate.
• While 70% of young people say they’re excited about the potential of generative AI (genAI) to improve their lives, over half (53%) of children who have used genAI have seen their peers use it negatively.

80% of children and young people think that young people should be listened to more about changes in technology, such as how it can remain safe. 

Knowing their world

It is not only computers and laptops that are internet enabled – other devices such as smart speakers, wearables (e.g., smart watches), toys with voice or image recognition, robots, drones and other mechanical toys, smart TVs, games consoles, are as well. Children can use them access to chat rooms, pornography and other sites where they may be at risk. Many of these platforms, and the chat groups within them, are invisible to adults who may not be made aware of what is being posted online until they receive a disclosure. In this digital age, online safety is a concern for all who work with, or are parents/carers of, children and young people.

Pre-school age children may not have access to internet enabled devices in their education setting, but they will do at home. It is therefore important that early years settings, as well as schools and colleges, model and educate about safe use of the internet, embedding good understanding and safe practice from the start.

Types of risk/harm

The number of online issues that could be regarded as harmful is considerable, but they can be categorised into four areas of risk:  

• Content: exposure to illegal, inappropriate or harmful materials, e.g., pornography, fake news, racism, misogyny, self-harm, eating disorders, suicide, radicalisation and extremism. Even pre-school children may come across such content – especially on devices with voice-activated search enabled.
• Contact: being subjected to harmful online interactions with other users, e.g., peer pressure; cyberbullying; adults posing as children or young adults with the intention to groom or exploit them for sexual, criminal, financial or other purposes; sexual abuse, for example, non-contact activities, such as involving children in looking at (or in the production of) sexual images, watching sexual activities and encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.
• Conduct: personal online behaviour that increases the likelihood of/causes harm, e.g., making (including AI-generated), sending and receiving consensual and non-consensual nudes and semi-nudes and/or pornography; sending sexually explicit messages; cyberbullying; allowing apps/websites to access location; accidentally sending inappropriate and/or indecent images and information to a device’s contact list;  obsessive use of the internet and ICT, for example, addiction to video games, social media self-image and number of likes; exposure to/creation of hate mail or offensive images, game hacking, device crashing, stalking, harassment, videoing/livestreaming assaults.
• Commerce: finance-based risks (both as victims and perpetrators), e.g., online gambling; in-game spending; inappropriate advertising; phishing and/or financial exploitation e.g., being persuaded or tricked into ‘money muling’ or ‘squaring’ (moving someone else’s money through your bank account for a commission); copyright infringement, for example, the illegal sharing of music, pictures, videos or documents.

Online abuse is any abuse (such as bullying, grooming, exposure to pornographic and extremist materials, radicalisation and sexual/criminal exploitation) that is carried out using internet-connected technology. Online abuse may take place through social media, messaging apps, emails, online gaming, live-streaming sites or other channels of digital communication. Children who are abused offline may be re-victimised online if their abuse is live-streamed or recorded and posted online. 

The Online Safety Act

The Online Safety Act (2023) makes tech companies legally responsible for preventing and removing illegal content like terrorism and revenge pornography. They must also stop children seeing harmful material, such as bullying, pornography and content promoting self-harm and eating disorders.

Social media companies must provide adults and children with clear, accessible and easy-to-use ways to report problems and make complaints online if harms arise. If you think a company is failing to meet the required standards, it should be easy to raise your concerns with the platform.

If you have ongoing concerns about a platform, you can make a complaint to Ofcom. While Ofcom cannot respond to individual complaints, this information can help them to assess which companies are complying with the regulations.

The Act also:

• makes it a crime to share an intimate image of someone without their consent;
• criminalises sending an explicit image for the purpose of sexual gratification or to humiliate, alarm or distress the recipient.

Organisations working with children should have policies and procedures in place so key staff know what steps to take if they have concerns that a company is not complying with the regulations, and how to support a young person who has had an image shared without their consent, or who has received or sent an explicit image.