First and most importantly, make sure your children know to guard your identity. They must not give their name, address, or phone number to any stranger. While you're at it, ensure that they know not to give out passwords, banking information or identifying numbers such as social security or driver's license number. They should also try to avoid giving clues as to their whereabouts. If a child mentions what school they attend in one place and the type of car they drive somewhere else, a determined criminal will piece your puzzle together.

It's a good rule to make your children understand it is safest to say no to meeting someone from the internet, but if they have every reason to believe this person is legitimate and still want to meet, make sure that they know to do so in a very public place and take friends or take you with them.

Remember that if you post your picture on the internet, anyone can save it and misuse it. Pornographers can apply fresh new faces to pre-posed porn. If you use poor judgment and supply inappropriate material yourself, remember that future schools and employers might find them when doing an application search. Think twice before posting risque pictures.

Finally, choose privacy settings that will limit who can see your blogs and profiles on networking sites such as MySpace. If criminals can't find you, they can't take advantage of you, and they can't ruin your fun on the internet.

For parents that want to take some action to protect their children or teens from possible danger, Symantec have this year launched an online family site for parents through their internet security brand Norton. Symantec has found that today’s parents often rate internet dangers higher on their list of concerns for their children than drugs and parents are often concerned about their children surfing the web, but don’t know what to do about it.

The online family site provides expert advice, education and updated articles as well as video discussions on the issue of cybercrime and internet dangers, and how parents can keep their children safe. The site also provides a service where parents can create ‘house rules’ with their children on internet use, and can then track their online activities to ensure these rules are not being broken and their children aren’t exposing themselves to online dangers.

It’s a great tool for parents who may be concerned about their children’s internet behaviour and need guidance in this area. The service is free until January 2010.

To check it out online you  can visit: www.onlinefamily.norton.com  

by Rachel Goodchild

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