Making it safe to surf
The Star (12 Oct 2011) KUALA LUMPUR: Six out of 10 parents are unaware of their children's online activities, at a time when 90% of the youngsters have experienced some form of threat on the Internet. The trend revealed by an international security specialist showed that children — facing threats ranging from cyber-bullying, harassment, online pornography, identity theft and online sexual predators — were also spending an average of 19 hours on the Internet each week. To address this, Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil has announced the drafting of a master strategic plan aimed at giving online protection to an estimated 11.2 million youngsters below 18 years of age. Adding colour to event: DiGi's Yellow Man helping SMK Seri Bintang Utara students (from left) Ng Demi, Amanda Given Yap and Ellisha Pang with ‘Guide for a family friendly Internet exprience' at the launch of the Child Online Protection seminar in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. "Unlike traditional parenting skills needed to protect children, parents these days have to be equipped with knowledge of possible threats in cyberspace. "Only four out of 10 parents are aware of their children's cyberspace activities. The study shows that children are spending an average of 19 hours a week online whereas their parents think it is only about 11 hours," she said of the trend highlighted in the Norton Online Family 2010 Report. "The figure is worrying and it is timely that we seriously look at their protection," she told reporters after launching the Child Online Protection seminar here yesterday. The plan, added Shahrizat, would call for a two-pronged approach in tackling the issue. "We will look at policies and laws to see how to weed out the negative aspects of online activities on children," she said, adding such laws were in place in the United States. Besides regulations, she said education and awareness programmes for both parents and children would be carried out nationwide. A BBC News Technology report, said Shahrizat, had identified Malaysians to be among the heaviest users of social networking, spending an average of nine hours each day. "A research firm also found Malaysians to have the most number of ‘friends' on Facebook with an average 233 people, compared to Japanese who only have 29." Voicing his support for the move was CyberSecurity's chief executive officer Datuk Husin Jazri, who said that the number of complaints it received via its Computer Emergency Response Team (MyCERT) had spiked some 130% since September last year. "Last year, MyCert received 5,181 reports. This year, the number of complaints is 11,930," he said, adding that one in every four e-mails was also linked to fraud. Describing this as only the "tip of the iceberg", he said it represented less than 10% of reported online incidents or threats. |
