Secure your children with Safer Internet Day

Safer Internet Day will take place on Tuesday, February 9th, 2027. It is an opportunity for parents and carers to talk with children about their online experiences, review privacy settings, and encourage safer digital habits.

Helping children stay safe online involves more than monitoring their activity. Open conversations, age-appropriate settings, and parental controls can work together to support good online habits. Parental controls can help restrict unsuitable content, manage screen time, limit communications, and prevent unwanted purchases.

Tips to help keep children safer online

1. Review privacy settings on your children’s apps and accounts. Limit who can contact them, view their posts, or access their location.
2. Protect parental-control settings and adult accounts with strong passwords or PINs that children cannot easily guess. Use separate profiles on shared devices where possible.
3. Create a different, strong password for each account. Help older children use a reputable password manager when appropriate.
4. Store passwords securely rather than leaving them in accessible notes or messages. A password manager, including a suitably protected browser-based one, is preferable to reusing passwords.
5. Teach children not to share passwords, PINs, or verification codes with friends or strangers. Make clear that they can come to you whenever they need help securing an account.
6. Encourage children to avoid sharing personal information, such as their address, school, or live location online, especially with people they do not know.
7. Keep devices, browsers, and apps updated, and enable automatic updates where available. Use the device’s built-in security protections and, where appropriate, reputable additional security software.
8. Talk regularly with your children about what they do online. Agree on family rules, check age requirements before creating accounts, and reassure them that they can tell you about upsetting content or unwanted contact.
9. Use online privacy tools for safer browsing. Enable your browser’s tracking protection and consider a reputable VPN when using shared Wi-Fi. These tools can help protect privacy.

These steps can help reduce risks, but no tool guarantees complete protection. Keep reviewing settings and family rules as your children grow, and make online safety an ongoing conversation – not just a one-off topic for Safer Internet Day.