Experts warn of children’s ‘false sense of security’ online

Child online well-being experts warned this Thursday about the “false sense of security” experienced by Portuguese families due to the risk of their children becoming involved in cybercrime or engaging in deviant behavior online.

“There is a false sense of security” that serious cases involving children or young people online “do not happen here” in Portugal, Christiane Miranda warned.

The digital education specialist bases his knowledge on the meetings that the association “Agarrados à net” has been holding in schools for several years with parents, students and teachers.

Until recently, cases of cybercrime in the media took place abroad, but Christian Miranda remembers that “The Internet is not here and there, it is everywhere, it is global.”

The recent case of a 17-year-old Portuguese man suspected of persuading other young people to commit violent crimes through an online platform showed that there are no limits.

In addition to this, a European study shows that cybercrime and risky behavior online is quite common among teenagers: almost half of the eight thousand young people aged 16 to 19 surveyed admitted to having been involved in at least one online activity. activity. crimes, and nearly 70% admitted to committing criminal acts online or engaging in dangerous activities.

Portuguese were not included in the study, but online safety expert Tito de Morais believes the national reality will be similar, especially as there is little variation between young people in the nine countries involved in the study.

The messages Christian Miranda and Tito de Morais hear when they go to school are also not uncommon. At each session there is usually at least one concerned mother. Almost never such cases can be called cybercrime, but this does not stop two representatives of Agarrados à Net from worrying.

“The most recent case involved a 13-year-old girl who was sexually extorted by an older boy,” recalls Tito de Morais, who in 2003 created Portugal’s first association dedicated to addressing drug use among children and young people. Internet.

Girls as young as 12 and 13 sending nudes without realizing the seriousness of the act and cases of boys becoming addicted to online games are other stories they have heard of.

Tito de Morais adds that “young people often have no idea that they are committing criminal acts and behavior” and do not know that they face severe punishment.

The expert stresses that such cases “don’t happen overnight” and that parents should be wary when children start using devices.

“At increasingly younger ages, children are being connected to online technology and left alone, without any supervision,” he laments, warning families about the importance of being present as children “start to wake up online.”

Tito de Morais had eight-year-olds in his school classes who wanted to know “what is the dark web or what is Tor,” the dark web browser that guarantees anonymity.

“It’s when they go to school that they start to enter this world,” the expert recalls, explaining that their motivations range from wanting to be known among their peers to wanting to “go into the school system to change their grades.”

Some are self-taught, others learn from their colleagues. Everyone is at risk “when they start to penetrate the dark web and the dark web,” warned Tito de Morais.

He has warned about the dangers of Internet use for more than two decades, creating the MiudosSegurosNa.Net project in 2003 to help families, schools and communities promote responsible and safe Internet use.

The founder of the MiudosSegurosNa.Net project regrets the lack of research on youth cybercrime and recalls that the main themes of the beginning of the century remain relevant.

The great revolution of the last 20 years was the emergence of tactile devices, which allowed anyone to use them, even those who could not read. The evolution of technology has dramatically lowered the age of use: “Today we have children as young as a few months old using smartphones,” he lamented.