Protecting Yourself by Protecting Your Personal Information
June 5, 2006
Often the cyberbullies are people we know. They are sometimes our children’s former best friends. As they fall in and out of friendship in their middle school years, their former friends know how to hurt them. They know their personal information, what hurts most and very often know their passwords too.
They may share secrets entrusted to them when they were still a trusted friend. Or close friends know the inside story and the rumors. They also know who to get on their side, against the victim.
But often our children share too much personal information with others who are not their very close friends. And this information (such as pictures, schools, personal family information, mobile phone numbers and screen names) can be used to hurt them. It makes it easier to pose as the victim in a cyberbullying-by-proxy attack. It makes it easier to steal their identity. It makes it easier to discover their password. It makes it easier to find their vulnerabilities or pose as someone they trust. It makes their claims more believable.
Talk to them about what information they can and cannot share. Look over their profiles online and see what they are saying that might give away information inadvertently. Play detective with them to find anything that could be misused and that should be kept private. Password protect everything you can and guard the password carefully. Check and see what their friends are posting about your child. Even when they are friendly, they may give away too much personal information about your child by accident. And make sure your children come to you when they get into an argument with a friend. It can often turn nasty online. If they get into a fight with a close friend, change their password before their friend can abuse it.
The more our children keep personal information to themselves, the safer they will be. This is advice our grandmothers gave to our mothers and our mothers gave to us. Make sure you pass it along to your children.