Ofcom’s annual ‘Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes’ report aims to provide a comprehensive picture of how young people use and experience the internet in any given year.
In the guide you’ll find information on areas including children’s online activities, popular apps and parental concerns.

https://nationalonlinesafety.com/hub/view/guide/ofcom-children-and-parents-media-use-and-attitudes-report-2020-21

Teaming up with the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Cyber Crime Unit to help you get wise to some common online offences. Do you know how to spot a phishing email? Can you trust public WiFi? And what you should you do if a young person becomes interested in hacking? Find out with the guide below:

https://nationalonlinesafety.com/hub/view/guide/cyber-crime

A 3D ‘lifestyle simulator’ for mobiles, Avakin Life has a notable percentage of young teens among its 1.4 million daily users. But is the content really suitable for such an impressionable audience? With revealing outfits, suggestive dance moves and private chats with older users, it’s not difficult to see why at least one regional UK police force has already issued a safeguarding alert about the game.

It’s a game which prioritises physical appearances and material possessions. But that may be the least of Avakin Life’s issues. With a lack of age verification, players can easily pretend to be someone they’re not in this setting. Add in skimpy outfits, suggestive dancing and the facility to chat in private, and there’s a clear risk to the game’s younger teen users.

https://nationalonlinesafety.com/hub/view/guide/avakin-life

Between May 2020 and January 2021, the value of audio chat discussion app Clubhouse soared from $100 million to $1 billion. Only available on Apple devices (for now), it’s currently ranked #7 in the App Store’s social networking chart: not too shabby for an app that users can only join by invitation.

Already a success on iOS devices and with an Android version in the works, invitation-only audio app Clubhouse has put a chic new slant on online debate and networking. But question marks over privacy and data protection, plus potentially contentious subject matter – like politics, race, sexuality and religion – have already raised concerns. So how safe is Clubhouse? How do you get invited? And is it suitable for young people?

https://nationalonlinesafety.com/hub/view/guide/clubhouse

The multimedia messaging app Signal has been dubbed “an overnight success, years in the making”. The result of a merger between two older apps (TextSecure and RedPhone), Signal has been available since 2015, but didn’t gain notable popularity until the latter half of 2020 – since when it’s been downloaded by an additional 20 million users globally.

Co-founded by the man who also started WhatsApp, Signal has been one of the major beneficiaries from the controversy around WhatsApp’s changes to its privacy policy last year. The two apps have plenty in common, so it was hardly surprising that users leaving WhatApp would head for what for appeared to be a ready-made replacement. If anything, Signal is even more secure in terms of encryption. But is that necessarily a good thing in every context? Does Signal in fact make it easier to get away with bad behaviour online? And should young people be using it?

https://nationalonlinesafety.com/hub/view/guide/signal

Online predators are using the live video chat site to take advantage of young boys and gather child sexual abuse materials, a BBC documentary has found. Omegle links random users together to engage in video or text chats and global child protection groups have voiced their concerns about the online risks it poses to children. One 15-year-old user described how she often comes across grown men acting inappropriately on the site. She says, “[Omegle] is like the dark web but for everyone.”

Access the Omegle safety guide: https://nationalonlinesafety.com/hub/view/guide/omegle 

For more information follow the link below:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56085499?utm_campaign=NOS%20Monthly%20Update%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=114330654&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-82XYUK1Si1UqrzbPZrwcC-pExrYDKm-NWpcDkzFeyOzjPIY5BodwKy47-204mS1vf0UTbg8IQPPqT_rXG9t8AHEp0VOcy0kHOXt7FLpwUFQOnLquQ&utm_content=114330654&utm_source=hs_email

With around two billion users, WhatsApp’s incorporation into the Facebook empire looked to have cemented its status as the market leader for messaging. But over recent months, the app – though still massively popular – has actually seen numbers dropping. As our guide discovers, though, the exodus may have been an over-reaction. We’ll also check out the other new features WhatsApp’s introduced. Why should parents and carers be aware of the ‘disappearing messages’ option? What has the app done to arrest the spread of fake news? And how does it help young people to start thinking more critically about things they might read online?

https://nationalonlinesafety.com/hub/view/guide/whatsapp

You might not know it – even if you have one – but most new smartphones include an array of emergency functions that could prove invaluable to you in a crisis. From sending notifications to specified contacts to connecting you rapidly with the emergency services, it’s no exaggeration to say that your phone could potentially save your life – or help you save someone else’s – in a matter of seconds.

Rec Room is another one of those games which surged in popularity during the pandemic. It’s user base trebled in 2020, as players realised that the platform’s ‘open-world’ nature and interactivity were a way of replicating social contact. In-game events reflected that, with rooms set up to happy hours, birthday parties, maths tutorials and even therapy sessions.

Before Zoom, before Teams, there was Chatroulette. But users of that video calling software tended not to be offering anything as innocent as a quiz, and there was usually only one item on the agenda. A runaway word-of-mouth success on its launch in 2009, Chatroulette since seemed to have melted away into internet obscurity. But a surge of new users during lockdown appears to have brought it back from the brink. So what happens on Chatroulette calls? Is there really as much inappropriate content as popular opinion would suggest? Who uses the service? And is any part of it safe … at all? This week’s free #WakeUpWednesday guide investigates.

https://nationalonlinesafety.com/hub/view/guide/chatroulette