Back-to-school used to mean new stationery, lunchboxes and backpacks. Today, it includes mobile phones, school-issued laptops, tablets, and a dashboard full of educational apps.
While these digital tools unlock learning opportunities, they also drop children, some as young as those in pre-school, straight into the digital deep end. Before children log in this term, they need to be armed with cybersecurity knowledge. From gaming scams to AI deepfakes, here are five essential digital safety conversations parents and educators need to have before the school bell rings.
School devices are not toys
When a student is handed a shiny new tablet or laptop for school, they often treat it like a personal device, downloading unapproved third-party browser extensions, apps and games, and trying to bypass restricted websites.
Phishing campaigns aimed at children rarely take the form of fake bank emails or the like. Instead, they often disguise themselves as “Free V-Bucks” generators, in-game skin giveaways, or cheats for games like Minecraft. Teach children to never input a school email address, home address, or password into a third-party site promising in-game rewards.
Building the “lock it down” mindset
With schools using dozens of educational portals (from Canvas to Kahoot), students are managing a mountain of login credentials. If they use the same password, like a pet’s name, for a quiz app and their main school portal, a breach on one means a breach on both. Instead of passwords, create passphrases – long, memorable sentences or strings of words that are easy to type but difficult for cybercriminals to crack.
Cyberbullying and digital footprints
When an entire classroom gets a direct, 24/7 digital link to each other, peer-to-peer friction quickly moves beyond school hours. Cyberbullying, exclusionary group chats, and impulsive posting can cause real-world emotional damage and permanently stain a student’s digital footprint before they even apply to college or university.
Remind children that the internet is written in ink, not pencil. If they wouldn’t say it to someone’s face in the hallway, they shouldn’t type it into a chat box or leave it as a comment. Parents and teachers should create an open-door policy so that children feel safe going to them if they, or classmates, are being targeted online.
Navigating AI and deepfakes
Generative AI is a great tool for brainstorming and learning, but it has rewritten the cybersecurity threat landscape over the last few years. From AI-generated deepfakes used for exploitation to sophisticated phishing emails, children are encountering fake media every single day.
Adopt a mindset of healthy scepticism. Teach children that seeing is no longer believing online. Photos, videos, and even voices can be easily manipulated, meaning they should never share personal photos or information with strangers.
As you check off notebooks and pencils from your back-to-school list this year, take 10 minutes to build your family’s digital defences.
