Teens get safety net

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Of the 245 complaints of fake profiles and 51 complaints of defamation that the cyber cell of Delhi had received last year, a majority of them involved minors. Teenagers are the most vulnerable and thus to protect them from impersonation and harassment on social networks, the cyber cell of Delhi Police has initiated an awareness programme for teens aged 14-18 years.

Under the programme, an officer of deputy commissioner rank would visit schools and brief the children about precautionary measures to be adopted while venturing into social networking websites. The police will also appoint a ‘tech savvy’ teacher as their nodal officer who can counsel and co-ordinate with students.
School teachers think it is a good move as it would sensitise the kids and help them in solving the cyber issues on their own.
Pooja Sethi, a computer science teacher from an east Delhi school, says that in the computer lab she often hears horrifying stories from the kids in her class. “Everyone is under threat,” she says, as she narrates the story of a guy who was interested in music and befriended a small time DJ on Facebook in order to get free passes of music events. “But the kid was exploited by this musician, who started extracting money from him. But since the kid was smart and told us about the incident, he soon got help,” says Pooja, who thinks that if kids get mental assurance that help is there, they would feel secure.
But while the cops are trying to take steps to keep the count of cyber crimes among teens low, is it really possible to drastically curb the problem and what are the steps required to do so?
Vishal Kumar, a banker and a part time cyber expert, says that he comes across many cases in which the kid’s carelessness is instrumental in making the problem snowball. “The most common case is of blackmailing kids with their morphed pictures,” says Vishal.
He once came across a case where a 17-year-old girl’s pictures were morphed and circulated all across the net. “While talking to the girl, I found out that she saw the pictures in question on a system in her college computer lab. While she said that she never saved them, the files got saved in the temp files. One has to be very careful while using a public computer,” says Vishal, who thinks that the recent move by Delhi Police would only be helpful if they study the common cases and coach the students on how to avoid the risks.
The focus of the initiative would be on creating awareness among children about the risks of uninhibited exchange of information on the internet and the precautions one needs to take.
Kamakshi Bhat, a Class 11 student of a Faridabad school, says that while she has not fallen victim inspite of being net-savvy, she has many friends who have had harrowing experiences. “I feel one has to be more responsible. While we can be taught many things, security would be ensured only by being alert and managing security settings of all the social networking profiles,” she concludes.