Instant Messaging

The following suggestions are offered as advice when communicating online via instant messaging or chat:

Protect yourself:

• Tracing or identifying the person you are communicating with is extremely difficult
• Not everyone is whom they may claim to be
• Changing your identity is an easy process and strangers on-line may be difficult to recognise
• The person may not reside or work where they indicate
• Don’t jump to conclusions, base your conversations on fact
• If in doubt about information provided by the other person, ask for further proof
• Do your own research to corroborate what the other person is saying
• Consider advising another person of your decision to meet with someone you have met online
• Keep your computer in a family room, not in a bedroom, that way you can supervise its use and the conversations being conducted on it
• Don't allow your child to submit personal information without your permission, or knowledge of why they are submitting it
• Try to interact with your child while they are online - expressing an interest can be both informative, reassuring and educational to both you and the child
• Encourage them to show you and tell you about anything that makes them uncomfortable whilst online
• Familiarise yourself and talk to your child about who they contact on-line

Never allow your child to have an unsupervised meeting off-line with anyone they meet on-line.