Weston College, Further Education for 16-18 year olds

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E-Safety - SPACE

What is SPACE?

Space is an e-safety campaign brought to you by Weston College.

 

 

For further information about E-safety and how to report it visit CEOP’s website.

Click here

Select online friends carefully

You wouldn’t talk to everyone when you’re on the streets, so why would you do so online? Not everyone is who they claim to be online, and sometimes their picture is not them at all. Make sure that you are safe online by never adding people that you do not know or keep requesting to be your friend.

Social networks will never tell someone that you have ignored or refused a friendship request so you are free to do so if you want to. Most people that add you online will be your friends, however there are some that will not be. These strangers can pose a variety of threats, so it’s best to ignore their requests.

If someone adds you online and you are not sure if you know them or not, send them a polite message saying so. More often than not people will respond telling you how they met you. By only adding people that you definitely know, your friends list can remain your friends list.

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Protect personal information

You are unique – let’s keep it that way. By ensuring that all information shared online is not personal you can prevent identity fraud as well as:

  • Potential employers being put off by what they see about you. When sharing information online make sure that it is shared with the right people.
  • People knowing too much about you. This may not seem like a bad thing, but would you want everyone to know where you live as well as what times everyone in your house is out?

The Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System (CIFAS) has a detailed webpage on how to keep your identity safe online, containing tips such as:

  • Treat your personal details as you would a valuable item; as something to be looked after.
  • Beware of emails ‘phishing’ for personal details – these often direct you to realistic-looking but fake websites set up to steal your identity.
  • Don’t publish your address, phone numbers, emails, date of birth, place of birth, passport or driving licence numbers anywhere. This includes any sensitive information on friends’ social networking walls.

Act wisely – protect your online reputation

When you are using the Internet it is easy to think that anything you do will not have consequences like in real life. This is quite often not the case, with what you do online having an effect on your reputation:

  • Pictures posted to the internet should be considered permanent, so be careful when posting pictures of parties you have been to, pictures of yourself, etc.
  • Statuses and comments can be intended as jokes between you and your friends however make sure that any comments made are suitable for anyone that might see them. A good rule to stick to is to keep all public comments free of anything above a 15 age rating for DVDs.

Protecting your online reputation will also ensure that potential employers will have the right impression of you if they decide to do some background research on applicants. By acting wisely now, you can be sure that your online reputation is positive.

Control privacy settings

Perhaps the most useful tool to protect yourself online is privacy settings, which allow you to decide who to share what with online. This means that you can still post personal information to your friends, whilst ensuring that only they can see. If you haven’t set up your privacy settings on Facebook, do it now.

Take a look through each of the sections making sure that none of them are set to “Public” as everyone will be able to see this information. You should change all instances of “Public” that you find to “Friends” or even custom, which allows you to pick exactly who you want to share the data in question with.

Facebook is not the only site with privacy settings that matter though, make sure to change your privacy settings on the sites that you use (Twitter, YouTube and Formspring for example). Each of these sites may have different privacy settings, so explore the privacy settings on your favourite sites. Although they are different privacy settings all boil do to who can see your information/content and how much that they can see.

Expose cyberbullying or abuse

Bullying can be devastating to the victim, whether it’s at College or online. If you know of, or are, a victim of cyber-bullying then report it immediately. In College you can report cyber bullying to:

  • Your tutor
  • Student services
  • Welfare Team.

Victims should never suffer in silence, so report incidences of cyber-bullying at the first opportunity to make sure that it doesn’t get worse. If you are a victim of cyber bullying, keep a diary of incidences to give to someone. There are many videos on YouTube about cyber bullying that show the effect it can have on people.

Cyber bullying is bullying, let’s fight it together.

What does S.P.A.C.E stand for?

S – Select online friends carefully

You wouldn’t talk to everyone when you’re on the streets, so why would you do so online? Not everyone is who they claim to be online, and sometimes their picture is not them at all. Make sure that you are safe online by never adding people that you do not know or keep requesting to be your friend.

Social networks will never tell someone that you have ignored or refused a friendship request so you are free to do so if you want to. Most people that add you online will be your friends, however there are some that will not be. These strangers can pose a variety of threats, so it’s best to ignore their requests.

If someone adds you online and you are not sure if you know them or not, send them a polite message saying so. More often than not people will respond telling you how they met you. By only adding people that you definitely know, your friends list can remain your friends list.

P – Protect personal information

You are unique – let’s keep it that way. By ensuring that all information shared online is not personal you can prevent identity fraud as well as:

  • Potential employers being put off by what they see about you. When sharing information online make sure that it is shared with the right people.
  • People knowing too much about you. This may not seem like a bad thing, but would you want everyone to know where you live as well as what times everyone in your house is out?

The Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System (CIFAS) has a detailed webpage on how to keep your identity safe online, containing tips such as:

  • Treat your personal details as you would a valuable item; as something to be looked after.
  • Beware of emails ‘phishing’ for personal details – these often direct you to realistic-looking but fake websites set up to steal your identity.
  • Don’t publish your address, phone numbers, emails, date of birth, place of birth, passport or driving licence numbers anywhere. This includes any sensitive information on friends’ social networking walls.

A – Act wisely – protect your online reputation

When you are using the Internet it is easy to think that anything you do will not have consequences like in real life. This is quite often not the case, with what you do online having an effect on your reputation:

  • Pictures posted to the internet should be considered permanent, so be careful when posting pictures of parties you have been to, pictures of yourself, etc.
  • Statuses and comments can be intended as jokes between you and your friends however make sure that any comments made are suitable for anyone that might see them. A good rule to stick to is to keep all public comments free of anything above a 15 age rating for DVDs.

Protecting your online reputation will also ensure that potential employers will have the right impression of you if they decide to do some background research on applicants. By acting wisely now, you can be sure that your online reputation is positive.

C – Control privacy settings

Perhaps the most useful tool to protect yourself online is privacy settings, which allow you to decide who to share what with online. This means that you can still post personal information to your friends, whilst ensuring that only they can see. If you haven’t set up your privacy settings on Facebook, do it now.

Take a look through each of the sections making sure that none of them are set to “Public” as everyone will be able to see this information. You should change all instances of “Public” that you find to “Friends” or even custom, which allows you to pick exactly who you want to share the data in question with.

Facebook is not the only site with privacy settings that matter though, make sure to change your privacy settings on the sites that you use (Twitter, YouTube and Formspring for example). Each of these sites may have different privacy settings, so explore the privacy settings on your favourite sites. Although they are different privacy settings all boil do to who can see your information/content and how much that they can see.

E – Expose cyberbullying or abuse

Bullying can be devastating to the victim, whether it’s at College or online. If you know of, or are, a victim of cyber-bullying then report it immediately. In College you can report cyber bullying to:

  • Your tutor
  • Student services
  • Welfare Team.

Victims should never suffer in silence, so report incidences of cyber-bullying at the first opportunity to make sure that it doesn’t get worse. If you are a victim of cyber bullying, keep a diary of incidences to give to someone. There are many videos on YouTube about cyber bullying that show the effect it can have on people.

Cyber bullying is bullying, let’s fight it together.

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