By the country’s standard rules, students are guaranteed to have their privacy protected by the government. However, the schools are also the ones that have a huge responsibility to ensure that the students can get their privacy protected all the time. Students usually consist of children and teenagers that are studying in educational institutions. However, in today’s modern world, many students have been introduced to the internet as a way to accelerate their education and learning.
In many ways, schools and teachers will allow the students to get access to the internet from the school’s library and other places under strict supervision from the teachers. In many cases, parents will also let their children to have access to the current gadgets such as smartphones or computers that are connected to the internet. The privacy of the students become more and more important since most of them are getting exposed to the online world since the early age. Here’s how students can protect their online privacy from cyber threats:
1. It Is The Responsibility Of The Students, Teachers, And Parents
There are many cases of cybercrimes that involve the students as the victims. These cases include cyber bullying, online stalking, harassment, and many others. Most of the time, people will only freak out when bad things are happening, whereas the ones who are responsible for their online safety should be the teachers and parents. So, not only the students that need to be taught about the importance of online privacy, the teachers and the parents should also be responsible in supervising their online behaviors and prevent them from exposing themselves to various cyber threats.
2. They Shouldn’t Be Overexposed To The Social Media
While many social media platforms have the policy that the users must be at least 13 years of age, there are many parents that allow their children to use social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook on a daily basis. As a result, these parents are overexposing their kids on social media, which might be dangerous for their online safety later. The one thing that the teachers and parents should do is to not overexpose the students to the social media, and even if they should use it, the students need to be taught to exercise caution when sharing their posts and other information on these social media platforms.
3. They Shouldn’t Be Allowed To Share Their Personal Information Freely
No matter what apps that they are using, the responsible adults shouldn’t let the students to share their personal information freely on the internet. Even if the parents need to allow the kids to play online games and communicate with other players over the internet, they should always remind their children not to get too involved with other people that they don’t know. This can also be applied to other online communications as well, such as Skype, instant messages, online forums, and so on.
4. Monitoring The Students’ Online Activity Is A Must
It is a must for school institutions and parents to always monitor the online activity of the students because the internet can be a dangerous place for them. If you don’t monitor their online activity constantly, you might end up not knowing what your children or teenagers are doing online. This can in turn be a danger for the students itself since they can go to certain online places where they shouldn’t go in the first place. The parents and teachers are then suggested to install software like internet filtering and parental control to monitor the students’ online behavior and control their internet usage.
5. Using VPN To Protect The Students’ Online Privacy With Strict Supervision From Teachers And Parents
VPN can definitely be used to protect the online privacy and security of the students. However, this type of technology will allow you to bypass any restrictions and make the internet a truly free place to explore. Of course, it can’t always be good for you to allow the students to explore the internet without any type of restrictions because there are too many bad people online that might pose as a threat for their online privacy. So, while the teachers and parents can use VPN to keep the students’ privacy protected, they need to supervise their internet usage and ensure that they don’t go to places where they can expose themselves to various online threats.
That’s how students can protect their online privacy from cyber threats. Whether it is bullying or harassment, they need to be taught about the importance of keeping their information private to themselves. With the guidance from responsible teachers and parents, it is possible to protect the online privacy of the students all the time.