As Malaysia moves towards its goal of becoming a developed nation by the year

2020, it isn’t much of a stretch to say that there is an increasing number of Malaysians who have adopted the online or digital lifestyle. Following the steady growth on Internet user in the country, thanks to the proliferation of home and mobile broadband connectivity, there is a great need to educate on the flip side of the world wide web.

According to the Internet Users Survey 2014 by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), about 15.5% of Internet users are within the pre-teen and teenage age group (below 19). In fact, users below the age of 15 has increased slightly since its last survey in 2012.

We are currently living in the age of hyperconnectivity, where our internet generation children are growing up accustomed to an environment where people and things are increasingly interconnected digitally, anytime, anywhere.

With more access to the Internet and to social media, underage Malaysians – children and teenagers alike – have many more opportunities to grow existing and new friendships. The Internet has been used as an education and learning tool, in addition to allowing them to explore their interests and identities.

On the flip side, using the internet and other social media tools can also expose children and young people to risks – ones that affect them emotionally and physically. These risks include cyberbullying, breach of privacy, and the more disturbing grooming and stalking, in which can assume the role of participant, recipient or actor, shares the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Malaysia in its Digital Landscape 2014 report.

What this means is that whilst Malaysians are enjoying what the Internet has to offer, MCMC believes that there is a need to safeguard users, especially children who are the most vulnerable, from the lurking threats and risks related to the Internet.

 

The Darkest Time

Malaysians were shaken to the core after the news of Richard Huckle’s unsavoury extracurricular activities splashed across the dailies and web portals. The British national, now convicted in the UK, had been sexually abusing Malaysian children by pretending to be an English teacher and volunteer in underprivileged communities.

Even more mortifying is Huckle’s endeavours in documenting his victims and attacks. On a dark web network for paedophiles, he actively boasted about his crimes to other members of a website called The Love Zone, and even seek to publish a manual called “Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide”. During his arrest, AFP reports that authorities also found over 20,000 indecent images on Huckle’s computer

It was reported on an Australian news network that Huckle had openly mention on the website about his conquests. Conversations like “hit the jackpot, a three-year-old girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care” and “impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle-class kids” are often how he starts his conversations on the website.

Throughout his tenure in Malaysia, his crimes were just buried underneath the fear and confusion of the victims, who probably were too afraid to report…as with many sexual abuse cases in the country.

Only during his hearings in London that Malaysians go the full scale of his crimes, with crimes committed against young children as young as six months to 12 years old, between 2006 and 2014. If that isn’t horrific enough, a sizeable number of the children identified in the charges had been abused for years, with many more going unreported.

For this very reason, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry opened up the Talian Kasih hotline to victims and those with information about this man.

He was deemed as Britain’s worst predatory paedophiles, one who targeted, groomed and abused up to 200 Malaysian babies and children, while sharing images of his horrific crimes on the dark web. The hearing ended with Huckle being handed 22 life sentences, which some expressing that it is “too light of a sentence for someone as sick as him”.

Now that this man is behind bars, is it safe for us to breathe easy? Unfortunately, no. Not long after the Huckle debacle, human rights activist Syed Azmi Alhabshi revealed a chilling post about Malaysian paedophiles potentially using the Telegram chat app to communicate and share images of underage children.

This is why it has become very important for parents, and their respective children, to be more careful in uploading photos online, especially when their social media pages are set public.

“The photos can be circulated and be used in the wrong way. This is also a reminder to myself and my family. Seems harmless but once the photo is ‘victimised’ there is no turning back,” explains Syed Azmi in his Facebook status.

More and more reports of child sexual abuse surfaced within the last few months. Investigative journalism at its best, the bright young minds over at R.AGE also uncovered how some Malaysian paedophiles operate in getting their prey. And it is easier than you think it is.

In an interview with The Star, MCMC’s ‘Klik Dengan Bijak’ advocacy and outreach division senior director, Eneng Faridah Iskandar shares that predators on the prowl online start off by building an emotional connection with underage kids to gain their trust. This is not for mere friendship but for the purpose of sexual abuse or exploitation, and it’s called grooming.

The dangerous thing about grooming is that many who had been victims of this subtle and slow abuse, were not aware or even comprehend what grooming was until they were older.

The interview also revealed that predators often use social media websites, instant messaging apps and gaming platforms as their literal playground. They are masters of building rapport with their potential victims from their online profiles. In fact, they might even pretend to be a “peer” by lying or hiding their age.

“Connecting with strangers through social media networks can sometimes be risky for our children if they make the wrong connections. As there is no real way to determine whether a person’s social profile is actually who they say they are, we can arm ourselves and our children with the knowledge of when an online connection or relationship turns dangerous to avoid trusting those who may be online predators,” shares the Telenor Group in its “A Parent’s Guide: How to talk to your children about the Internet”, a collaborative guidebook published by Digi and UNICEF in October 2015.

Eneng Faridah also shares with the local newspaper: “The first thing that groomers do is identify the places where their victims regularly go. It is also about children’s degree of exposure on the Internet. It is better to not expose your children to social media until they can decide whether they want an online presence. Sometimes, parents inadvertently make available information about their children online, which open them up to exploitation.”

The question is now, what can we do to protect the younger generation from the realities of the Internet, without affecting their freedom?

 

Safety First

In a world where the Internet and connected devices play such a big role, a major part of children’s lives goes unseen by adults, presenting parents with a difficult question: How do you ensure children are raised in a secure and safe environment without intruding on their privacy? After all, a child left alone with the Internet may encounter harmful or inappropriate content.

And this need isn’t baseless, as parental concerns about their children in the online world include online predators and privacy, as highlighted in the Norton Cyber Security Insights Report. In fact, the report found that 62% of Malaysian parents say their child has already experienced online crime.

“Children are becoming increasingly comfortable with technology devices like smartphones or tablets, and parents must be proactive in educating their children on online safety. Protecting children online is weighing heavier on parents than ever before as cyberbullying, online predators and privacy are now “real” world concerns,” says Choon Hong Chee, Director, Asia Consumer Business, Norton by Symantec.

One of the challenges can be attributed to the children hiding risky online behaviour from parents. A survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab reveals that almost half (44%) of children hide potentially dangerous online activity from their parents.

There is also peer pressure, which impacts on how children communicate with each other, thus making them more dependent on staying connected to the Internet. According to new research called the Connected Kids carried out by Kaspersky Lab and iconKids & Youth, parents provide their kids with connected devices to help them maintain contacts with their friends, and children themselves claim that they use these devices because their friends do so.

It’s so important to them that 35% would, under no circumstances, want to be without social media. As children get older, online methods even starts to dominate their social contact with others. Yet while social media makes it possible for young people to stay in touch with friends, it also makes children extremely vulnerable.

The research showed us that children from 8 to 16 are not only addicted to communicating on social media, but also behave very dangerously on these networks, putting themselves – and the rest of their families – in danger.

“Online communication has become such a substantial part of modern kids’ lives that parents should be paying extra attention to it. Kids are now experiencing peer pressure to use online tools as part of everyday communication and it’s important that parents are as vigilant as possible to the threats and aware of what their kids are doing on the Internet,” says Andrei Mochola, Head of Consumer Business at Kaspersky Lab.

Young people, who wish to be part of this social networking peer group, may find themselves sharing too much personal information on social networks. Many do this without realising that the information they share can also be seen and used by potentially dangerous people. Worryingly, most children display their school (66%) and the places they visit (54%), and one in five (22%) display their home address. When a child shares location information with their friends, little do they know that this information may be used by malicious people, intent on finding that child in real-life.

“The social media has become the weapon of cybercriminals to find and exploit their potential victims,” opines Choon

With children posting all of this information online, criminals have a wealth of data to take advantage of. Parents should be alarmed at the fact that a third of children reveal information about the expensive things their parents do (36%) and their parents’ work (33%), and a fifth discuss the amount of money their parents earn (23%). With this information in their hands, and combined with knowledge about where children are located, it’s easy to see how criminals can become more targeted in their activities.

And the risks are even higher than this, when we consider that a third of children (31%) is prepared to lie about their age online. 17% of 8 to 16 year olds pretend to be older than they really are and one in ten (10%) alter their ‘age’ depending on the website that they are using. In the worst cases, this scenario can leave children vulnerable to being approached by inappropriate adults, who think they are talking to other adults, not to mention exposing children to adult content.

“Sometimes children see no danger in their online conversations – they are open, fearless and communicative. And that is why their parents need to prevent them from being exposed to danger. It is wise to teach children from an early age what can be shared – online and offline – and what should be kept secret, in the interests of the family’s safety and privacy. It is also important to use necessary privacy settings in social networks, so that only friends can see children’s posts and information,” comments Mochola.

“It is also very important to talk to the child, explain online dangers and the advantages of communicating in the offline world.”

On this end, Norton shares its top tips for parents, where there are some actions parents can take to protect their children and keep their family safe online:

• Have an open dialogue – It’s important to start the conversation with your children early and have an open dialogue. Set aside time to discuss appropriate online behaviour and create age-appropriate “House Rules” about how computers, smart phones and gaming systems are used. It is also important to be a positive role model for children and lead by example.
• Educate children – Spend some time educating children regularly about the dangers of the Internet and create awareness around issues such as sexting, cyberbullying, online predators and privacy. Check to make sure your children are not sharing private information like passwords, addresses and phone numbers with people they don’t know.
• Explore technology – Consider free parental control technologies, such as Norton Family, that help to set and enforce the ground rules and can limit the sites that can be accessed and the type of information that can be shared online.

 

“As more children in Malaysia adapt to the fast-evolving digital world and social media, we encourage parents to take proactive measures to take responsibility and teach their children online etiquettes,” concludes Choon.