3 years ago

The digital environment that the pandemic created has further taken over practically every aspect of our lives. All our needs are being met online. Young adults, especially those in schools, are consuming and interacting with data like never before. But we are not just getting from the online world, we are also giving out something vital - information. About us. Without even knowing it.

Cybercrime, which includes everything from theft and embezzlement to data hacking and identity theft, was up 600 per cent as a result of the pandemic. But the vast majority of teens and young adults are not aware of the perils of the online world.

How can we keep our young adults safe from an increasingly online world? How can we inculcate the correct values and ethics for responsible digital engagement? Find out how to stay safe in Cyberia with Amrita University's 'Safe In Cyberia'.

Here are the Highlights of #SafeInCyberia Telethon:

May 15, 2022 21:32 (IST)
That's it on the #SafeInCyberia telethon. We leave you with some facts to ponder upon the way we interact in an online world and how can we keep our young adults safe in an increasingly online world.
May 15, 2022 21:24 (IST)
May 15, 2022 21:24 (IST)
May 15, 2022 21:23 (IST)
How can parents, teachers come together to create a protected digital environment for youngsters? Debarati Halder, Founder, Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling and Anubha Srivastava, President, India Wide Parents Association discuss the same during the #SafeInCyberia telethon
May 15, 2022 21:17 (IST)
An increasingly online world and an increase in cybercrimes against children
May 15, 2022 21:15 (IST)
It's getting more difficult for police to intervene and detect online crimes: Manoj Abraham, Nodal Officer, Kerala Police Cyberdome
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May 15, 2022 21:11 (IST)
How to keep children's safe as real and virtual world comes together? Know from Nirali Bhatia, Founder, CyberBAAP, Cyber Psychologist
It's no longer the next phase, it's already a current phase where the children's gaming world has progressed much more in technology. most of the games have real-life characters and that's why we are hearing all these instances of children getting too absorbed in the game, in the character and the aggression of the game coming out in real life as well. having worked with a lot of children who have been addicted to certain games online, where I see an intervention is where parents are extremely alert, attentive and involved.
May 15, 2022 21:01 (IST)
Our laws for the online world are not robust: Ranjana Kumari, Director, Centre for Social Research
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May 15, 2022 20:58 (IST)
Megha Bhatia, Founder, Our Voix on how cybercrime has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, cybercrime has increased. When I interact with young children, often girls tell me that if they have shared their personal images with their boyfriends, they end up blackmailing them and posting their pictures. Such instances or as simple as, children feeling complicated about their self-image. Often children think that likes define them. They start doubting themselves and it can have a very lasting impact on their lives.
May 15, 2022 20:49 (IST)
At #SafeInCyberia telethon, Shireen Vakil, Head of Safety Policy, Asia Pacific, Meta talks about how can one build privacy and protection
I think what we mean to do is to make sure that the apps are used only for people to connect and connect safely, hence we give the options to control what you share and what you can share like location is automatically sent to a private setting for minors. You can actually customise what you're sharing unless it's abusive, or with your family or colleagues. If someone is troubling you , you can block or report people and that's the way we know. If you block someone, they might try other means of contacting you, restricting option is also available.
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May 15, 2022 20:46 (IST)
Digital detox and monitoring can curtail exposure to abusive content online: Ashok Kumar Mohan, Assistant Professor, TIFAC-CORE in Cyber Security, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
May 15, 2022 20:41 (IST)
We are using technology to protect children: Shireen Vakil, Head of Safety Policy, Asia Pacific, Meta
At meta, we have zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation. The technology is open source, 99 per cent of the content comes down before it's used. We are trying to prevent the harm before it happens, looking at suspicious adults from contacting children and young people, and we are using technology to protect children.
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May 15, 2022 20:39 (IST)
Often trolls are ordinary people trolling for time pass: Nirali Bhatia, Founder, CyberBAAP, Cyber Psychologist
In Troll Police, the whole idea was that anonymity is simply a myth. While the show catered to the celebrities but it's absolutely wrong and they are just humans like us. We would meet the trolls and realise that they were ordinary people who were trolling only for time pass and they didn't realise what they are doing. Sensitisation is extremely important.
May 15, 2022 20:35 (IST)
Ritesh Bhatia, Cybercrime Investigator and Cybersecurity Consultant joins the special 2-hour #SafeInCyberia telethon
As far as cyber-bullying is concerned, it's one part of the cyber harassment. Under cyber harassment, there are several things like trolling. When trolling happens with kids, we call it cyber bullying. We have seen several people being bullied to such an extent that they want to commit suicide. It's extremely important, there are kids who can't talk to parents or teachers about it. At that point of time, it's very important to talk to friends or get in touch with anti-cyber organisations such as CYBER B.A.A.P. or somebody else. Speak to them. This is something that can be taken care of. When someone is being trolled we generally keep quiet. Here we need to come together and stop the bullying.
May 15, 2022 20:30 (IST)
Megha Bhatia, Founder, Our Voix talks about starting a cyber safety advocacy group to prevent child sexual abuse
When I was young, there was no such education. I strongly believe it's not a luxury that we are providing children, it's their human right. When we talk about international laws, UNCRC is in place in our country. Article 19 on UNCRC clearly states that the state needs to use adequate measures so that children get knowledge. We are doing it through animation, a knowledge that children understand.
May 15, 2022 20:25 (IST)
At #SafeInCyberia telethon, Ranjana Kumari, Director, Centre for Social Research talks about developing curriculums in cybersafety for hundreds of CBSE schools
There is a need for policy change. We have reached out to 5 lakh schools in the country with how to make best use of tech space, and what is very important is we need it to be a compulsory school curriculum how to be online and how to keep yourself safe. It's not just social media but there are lots of sites. This should be implemented by CBSE and parents' knowledge on these issues is very important
May 15, 2022 20:23 (IST)
It Is Good To Start Teaching Cyber Hygiene To Youngsters: Ashok Kumar Mohan, Assistant Professor, TIFAC-CORE in Cyber Security, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
May 15, 2022 20:22 (IST)
Rights and awareness is key to ensuring privacy in cyber world: Rama Vedashree, CEO, Data Security Council of India
May 15, 2022 20:12 (IST)
In law, we currently do not have rights for our data protection: Lalit Panda, Senior Resident Fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
We currently do not in law have rights for our data protection. There are some provisions in the IT act about certain kinds of images and sensitive information, but the idea where our personal information is given the right and recognised is important. This culture of awareness is extremely important. If a company is to use your personal data they are to declare what they are using it for and the anchor needs to be taken on a consent, hence the vision of a data protection law and the person using your data is, you still need to have continued right over your data and how to correct it or to stop it from being published.
May 15, 2022 20:01 (IST)
Teach responsible online behaviour to youngsters: Srinivas Kodali, Researcher working on data, governance & internet at #SafeInCyberia telethon
It is a very interesting age group (15-30-year-old) and that's when we are most curious, but the right sources don't exist to answer these questions. There are not a lot of sources and awareness is needed. This age group is already online and they want to exercise their privacy. What needs to happen is how the world works, teach them responsibility on how to behave online and advocacy around awareness is important.

We are continuously trying to uplift the society where we are demanding the state to proactively take care of these issues. As a society we do know that state and society, a lot of POCSO cases are from known people. It could be a family member. For kids of these age groups, I think the responsibility is on us as a society and not just on parents. Some schools do talk about this. They start talking sexual awareness at the late teens. Even if someone who knows this that a child is being molested. Even if the child is unable to speak. It's our duty to start anonymously reporting it and I hope this increases over time.
May 15, 2022 19:51 (IST)
Privacy is a fundamental right: Rama Vedashree, CEO, Data Security Council of India
While privacy is declared as a fundamental right, we first need legislation and enforcement to make sure it is operationalised. In terms of the rights, whether it's children or adults in the online world, they need to be familiar with what are the risks of online platforms and how do you responsible use that. Given the current landscape of India where a lot of users are coming line now or many of them are not digitally very literate. The cognitive burden of building those kinds of controls and safety mechanisms should also rest with the actual providers of those platforms. The providers could be industry members or government agencies. What are the controls you are putting in place so that any personal data is being shared, you are responsibly collecting and sharing it? And when it comes to children, are you really doing some necessary age verification as there are technological solutions to do so. When it comes to rights, given that we really don't have a legal framework yet, I would say there are no rights as such but you do have the IT act and sensitive personal data.
May 15, 2022 19:39 (IST)
Remember the word 'AMMA', says Ramaguru Radhakrishnan, Assistant Professor, TIFAC-CORE in Cyber Security, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore as he shares tips to stay safe on the internet
We started a centre in 2005 and we give courses on cyber security and an M.Tech course recently. We give knowledge on encryption and analysing the security of existing algorithms and we teach them to use machine learning or deep learning to identify crimes and we also teach them on how to do forensics with block chain and crypto.

Remember this word 'AMMA':

A is awareness, be aware of the technologies we are using or information we are sharing and who all can access it
M is mindful sharing - whatever we share is there on the internet forever
M is mindful decision-making without being judgemental. If we don't judge our children they will come to us to share their problems
A is anonymity. A lot of problems in the world is anonymity and we should teach them that nothing is anonymous
May 15, 2022 19:34 (IST)
Children more vulnerable to crimes online: Manoj Abraham, Nodal Officer, Kerala Police Cyberdome joins #SafeInCyberia telethon
May 15, 2022 19:28 (IST)
Staying #SafeInCyberia: What to do and what not to do
Here are some tips on how to stay safe in Cyberia.

What to do:
• Set strong passwords
• Use encrypted messaging services for online activities including messaging, video conferencing, emails etc
• Use only HTTP secured websites for shopping & any other form of transactions
• Read the privacy policies of websites carefully
• Disconnect the web camera, mic and location when not required

What not to do:
• Avoid using public wi-fi
• Never share OTPs on the phone
• Do not accept all cookies
• Do not give apps access to your location data unnecessarily
• Avoid sharing 'personal data' on social media
• Exercise caution when talking to strangers on dating apps & never meet them without adequate background check

May 15, 2022 19:24 (IST)
Kazim Rizvi, Founding Director, The Dialogue joins #SafeInCyberia Telethon and explains what has been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cybercrimes
May 15, 2022 19:20 (IST)
Victims of cybercrime share their ordeals
 
 Kumar (name changed) and Sujata (name changed) share how they became victims of cybercrime. Kumar's face was picked up from a WhatsApp video call and morphed onto porn, and was then blackmailed. On the other hand, Sujata lost Rs. 1.5 lakh from her account when she acted on a mail allegedly from her bank asking for KYC details.
May 15, 2022 19:10 (IST)
Internet was the single biggest tool for democracy to make people heard: Dr Prannoy Roy
We don't realise how bad it is. The single biggest problem in the world is a trust deficit; corporates, citizens and governments, in fact, people don't trust each other and this has to do with misuse of the internet. Internet was the single biggest tool for democracy to make people heard but like many other inventions, it can be used for undemocratic purposes like the pegasus, snooping, stalkers and other crimes. The show is important to understand the ghastly phenomenon and safeguard ourselves.
May 15, 2022 19:06 (IST)
The 2-hour special #SafeInCyberia telethon gets underway
May 15, 2022 18:21 (IST)
Less than an hour to go for a special #SafeInCyberia telethon
May 13, 2022 14:07 (IST)
Join us for a 2-hour special #SafeInCyberia telethon to know how to keep our teens and young adults safe in an increasingly online world
May 13, 2022 14:05 (IST)
How can parents ensure safety of children in Cyberia?
May 13, 2022 14:04 (IST)
What is the need of the hour?
May 13, 2022 14:01 (IST)
Where does India’s youth hangout?

Physical spaces have been replaced by virtual playgrounds. Face-to-face meetings now mean emojis. If you like someone you send them a gif and not a gift. Student research is done on google and not in a physical library. There is an app to track and manage literally every aspect of our lives. In short, we are living our lives in "Cyberia "and this was before the pandemic.
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