NAN-H-89
Safety
by Chiazo Ogbolu
Lagos, Feb. 22, 2017(NAN) The Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC), on Wednesday urged the youths to be safety conscious whenever they were on the internet.
Mr Yemi Odutola, the Communications Manager of W.TEC made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
According to him, the internet is a good place where people can make a career from but one should also be aware of the many vices that exist online.
“The youths need to be aware of how to use the internet properly so that they do not fall victim of fraudsters and hackers,” he said.
Odutola listed some of the ways the youths could protect themselves online as having a smart and strong passwords, paying attention to activities that they partook online.
Others, he listed as being on the lookout for scammers, be careful with fun and carefree online gaming.
He called for caution about information one provided on social media sites, adding that the more information one posted, the easier it was for hackers to use the information to steal ones identity and access data.
He said that the more risk youths took online, the more likely they would be contacted and urged them not to communicate with strangers online or add them to their list.
“There is need for them to tell their parents right away if they come across something that makes them feel uncomfortable.
“They should never agree to get together with someone they meet online without first checking with their parents,” he said.
Odutola said that recently the 2017 Safer Internet Day, which W.TEC partnered with Facebook was also centered on empowering people to use Internet technology toward community development.
“The focus is to make the internet safer for youths, what they can learn with it, and the many positive things that can be gotten from the internet.
“Up to 600 youths participated in the programme and they went through many drills and workshop to perfect their safety online.
“The students, mostly in secondary school learnt innovative ways of using the Internet safely and were taught how to write and post on the Dream Safer Internet Board,” he said.(NAN)
CAN/GY
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Edited by Grace Yussuf