Experts warn of children’s “false sense of security” online – World

Experts in the well-being of children on the internet warned this Thursday of the “false sense of security” that Portuguese families have in relation to the dangers 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 on the internet “do not happen here” in Portugal, warned Cristiane Miranda.

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

Until recently, media cases of cybercrime took place abroad, but Cristiane Miranda remembers that “the internet is neither here nor there, it is everywhere, it is global”.

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

Added to this is a European study that shows that cybercrime and risky behavior on the internet are quite common among teenagers: Almost half of the eight thousand young people interviewed, aged between 16 and 19, admitted to having been involved in , at least one online crime and almost 70% acknowledged having committed criminal acts online or having participated in dangerous activities.

The Portuguese were not included in the study, but online security expert, Tito de Morais, believes that the national reality will be similar, especially because there are few differences between young people in the nine countries in the study.

The reports that Cristiane Miranda and Tito de Morais hear when they go to schools are also not rare. In every session, it is normal for at least one worried mother to appear. These are almost never cases that constitute cybercrime, but that doesn’t stop the two representatives of “Agarrados à Net” from worrying.

“The most recent case was a 13-year-old girl who was being targeted for sexual extortion by an older boy”, recalled Tito de Morais, who in 2003 created the first association in Portugal concerned with the way children and young people were using the internet.

Girls aged 12 and 13 sending ‘nudes’ without realizing the seriousness of the act and cases of boys addicted to online games are other stories they know.

Tito de Morais adds that “young people often have no idea that they are committing criminal acts and conduct”, nor do they know that they could incur heavy penalties.

The expert emphasizes that these cases “don’t happen overnight” and that parents should be alert when children start using the devices.

“At an increasingly young age, kids are being turned over to online technologies and are left alone, without any supervision”, he laments, warning families of the importance of being present when children “start to wake up to the internet”.

In school sessions, Tito de Morais has had eight-year-old children wanting to know “what the ‘darkweb’ was or what Tor was”, a ‘darkweb’ browser that guarantees anonymity.

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

Some are self-taught, others learn from their colleagues. Everyone is at risk “when they start to enter the ‘darkweb’ and ‘darknet'”, warned Tito de Morais.

He has been warning about the dangers of using the internet for more than two decades, having created the “MiudosSegurosNa.Net” project in 2003 to help families, schools and communities promote responsible and safe use.

The founder of the MiudosSegurosNa.Net Project regrets the lack of research into youth cybercrime and remembers that the major themes from the beginning of the century remain current.

The great revolution in the last 20 years was the appearance of tactile devices, which allowed anyone to use them, even without knowing how to read. The evolution of technology has drastically lowered the age of use: “Today we have children as young as months old using smartphones”, he lamented.