Help protect your child from unwanted contact online

Optus Digital Thumbprint has launched a guide, Protecting your identity – Blocking unwanted contact, that helps young people to deal with unwanted contact online.

Has your child ever been contacted randomly by a stranger online? This could be through a game or on social media and it can be unsettling. 

Digital Thumbprint’s new guide is designed for both kids and their parents and covers how to:

• Identify the signs of unwanted contact
• Help keep yourself safe from unwanted contact
• Take action if you experience unwanted contact 
• Block and report accounts
• Find more help when you need it

Unwanted contact is online communication that’s inappropriate, offensive or makes you feel uncomfortable.

Here are some of the characteristics of unwanted contact and the behaviour that your child may experience online.

Your child might be told stories by someone online that don’t match up to different bits of information they previously shared with your child, like their age or location. If your child feels unsafe or uncomfortable encourage them to trust their gut.  

Your child may be contacted by someone repeatedly asking them to respond across multiple online platforms like games, messaging apps or social media sites. 

Someone may try force your child to share personal details about their life like where they live, how they get to school and who they live with. 

They might make your child feel embarrassed or uncomfortable by asking personal questions that intrude on their privacy, like asking about relationships or their body.

They might sound threatening or extreme and say or send things that are insensitive, hateful, violent or just make your child feel really uncomfortable, often without their consent. 

They might ask for money, in-game tokens, payments or pictures of your child or their friends. 

There are some simple things your child can do to make it harder for people to contact them in a way they don’t online.

• Try and know your online friends IRL (in real life)
• Be extra careful about sharing personal information and avoid clicking on any external links
• Go through your contact/ follower lists and remove and block unwanted accounts

Parents can help their kids to stay safe online by helping them check their privacy settings. Settings screens may look different across different apps, but most allow you to stay private and control who contacts you. The guide has some general steps to follow to keep your accounts private.

You can also check the community guidelines for all games and apps to find out what behaviour can be reported to the app. Just Google the name of the app or game and ‘community guidelines’ to find the information you need.

Depending on the situation, there are different things you and your child can do to deal with unwanted contact. One of the first things is to create an open space and let your child know they can always come to you if something goes wrong online. Help them to feel supported and not scared they’ll be punished.  Also let your child know they can speak to a trusted adult such as a teacher. 

Like checking privacy settings, the steps may vary slightly depending on the app or game but most will allow you to block and report someone to stop them contacting you online.

What to do if you experience unwanted contact

1. Get support – tell someone you trust
2. Ask them to stop
3. Block them
4. Report them to the platform
5. Report to the Office of the eSafety Commissioner
6. Report them to the police

Find out more about blocking unwanted contact online in the full guide.

Optus Digital Thumbprint supports digital safety and wellbeing for young people and families. Find out more at www.digitalthumbprint.com.au