It’s never too early to teach your children about online safety and spotting scams to prevent them from falling victim
Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses a Federal Trade Commission program that offers educational materials and even classroom-based tools to help kids understand privacy and online safety, advertising, spotting scams, and digital citizenship with the FTC’s James Kreidler.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
This morning on BRN Privacy, a free online safety program for children. Joining me now to discuss this is James Kreiber of the Federal Trade Commission. Jim, great to see you.
Thanks for joining us in the program this morning. Thanks so much, Jeff. Pleasure to be here.
And we’re going to talk about the Youville program in a minute, but I want to start out with a basic question. How important is it for young adults, younger children, to understand proper, I’m going to call it privacy hygiene, online hygiene?
James Kreidler, Federal Trade Commission
Yeah, I think it’s just a hugely important topic. Really, you know, there’s so many kids that are online now, really now more than ever. And we designed Youville as a way for teachers to help young children, that’s kids basically eight to 12 years old, learn things about privacy and online safety, how to spot and avoid scams, digital citizenship and understanding advertising techniques that target them.
So we think it’s a free resource and we hope it’s going to be a big help to a lot of people.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And look, I have nieces and nephews, and I think since they were born, they’ve been scrolling. I mean, they’re young. They’re probably anywhere from four to eight.
I mean, they are young and they know how to use these devices. It only makes sense for parents to help educate them about how to protect themselves. Jim, let’s talk about Youville.
What led the FTC and you and the team to create this program on behalf of children everywhere?
James Kreidler, Federal Trade Commission
Yeah. So, you know, we created Youville because kids are online now more than ever. And we wanted to create some tools that teachers and parents and really anyone who works with kids can use to help them be safe online.
And so we chose this age group of tweens because it’s around the time when many kids are really learning about technology and they can also build some skills about how to protect their own privacy, how to be online in a safe way and how to spot and avoid scams.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And how, if I’m a parent, let’s start with parents, how would I access Youville? What do I need to do if I want to bring it directly to my child?
James Kreidler, Federal Trade Commission
Yeah. So if you’re a parent, go to ftc.gov slash Youville. And there you’ll see, well, there’s a video that kind of gives you an intro to the whole program.
But then there’s also a series of downloadable information. So we have 12 lesson plans and activity sheets. You can download any of those.
And these are short activities that are about 10 to 15 minutes. They pose hypothetical online situations for kids. And so you can do these activities with them.
And, you know, they make choices about if they received a message from someone they don’t know, should they give their private information to that person? And it really helps them kind of understand the consequences of what some of those choices are. And it’s also fun.
Youville is wrapped into an adventure narrative where kids work together to save the Youbies, which are the citizens of Youville, from this powerful force called the Clawed, which is trying to basically suck up their private information. And so there’s there’s that adventure aspect and they’re fun activities. And, yeah, we would encourage any of your listeners to to go to the website, download some of the some of the material and then do those things with the children in their lives.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, it sounds almost reminiscent of I used to watch the Smurfs Transformers when I was a kid. I’m really dating myself. How did you come up with the concept?
I think that that’d be interesting. I mean, knowing that kids today have so many different ways to view and view content. I mean, I know my nieces and nephews, they do this.
They have bad thumbs because they’ve been scrolling and they scroll through videos. How did you how did you and the team come up with the concept?
James Kreidler, Federal Trade Commission
Yeah, I guess we came up with the concept because, you know, Youville is it’s all about them. It’s about the kids themselves. And I think, you know, the fact that a lot of kids are on their own devices, we wanted to really appeal to them.
And but also kind of have them be the deciders, have them be the ones who are choosing, you know, oh, what should I do in this situation? So so we think it’s a concept that really appeals or will appeal to kids. And we’re really excited to have it out in the world.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And teachers, are you seeing an interest since you made the announcement or not you in particular, but the FTC made the announcement with the resources? Are you seeing a lot of interest along from local local school districts and schools saying, hey, this is a great part of our curricula?
James Kreidler, Federal Trade Commission
Yeah. You know, it’s very early. We’ve only launched in the last few weeks.
So it’s it’s hard to say exactly how much reach we’re getting, but it is a national program available to anyone who teaches kids for free and for parents. And we you know, we think it’s kind of the perfect add on to classes in social studies or in language arts. There’s a lot of different applications.
Youville is designed to meet standards. So it really does slot in quite well with, you know, the things that teachers are teaching kids.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And I would think that as you track the success of the program, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but you’re going to be looking at over time, hopefully the number of invasions of privacy and even complaints probably hopefully will go down, at least from from this set of parents and their and their children. Right.
I mean, that that’s one way to measure success is is the number of complaints should go down because people have been educated about this. Doesn’t mean that the scams will stop. I think they’ll only increase.
But that’s one way to track success.
James Kreidler, Federal Trade Commission
Yeah. Couldn’t agree with you more. Yeah.
I think, you know, our goal really is to maybe help help give tools to parents so that a whole generation of kids, if they come in contact with Youville and use some of the resources, really have tools to navigate safely online.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And look, this is just to talk about the issue in general. There’s a lot of scammers out there and they’re outside the US and they do all sorts of these crazy tactics, even creating mirror websites, Jim.
I mean, it’s it’s so invasive. It’s really scary.
James Kreidler, Federal Trade Commission
Yeah, that’s that’s right. I mean, you know, the FTC gets reports of all types of scams. And I think what we hope with Youville is that by giving kids tools to practice seeing what some of these scams are.
So, you know, just for example, things like, you know, when kids are are playing online, if they get a message that says, oh, you could get this free character or or more coins in this game. If you give us some personal information, you know, they’ll know to stop and question that. And I think having the opportunity to practice some of those skills, you know, on a regular basis is really the best way for them to move forward.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And last question, Jim, us older folks that are not in the tween age, what can we do in terms of tapping into some of the FTC resources to make ourselves better? Because they’re not only targeting younger people, they’re targeting older people, people like my age and older people that are maybe a little bit younger than I am.
So what can we do? Are there resources also? Is there a Youville version for an old guy like me?
James Kreidler, Federal Trade Commission
Well, there’s not a specific Youville version for an old guy like you, but we do. The FTC has enormous resources and they’re all available at consumer.ftc.gov. So we have resources about how to handle how to spot and report all types of different scams. Let’s see.
There’s also we have a program called Pass It On for older adults, which is based on this idea that if you hear about a scam from a friend or a family member, you’re much more likely to be able to spot and avoid that scam. And so if one Googles FTC Pass It On, you can find that campaign as well. So there’s there’s really just a host of resources that we have, and we’d encourage people to go to FTC.gov slash Pass It On or consumer.ftc.gov. Yeah, well, Jim, great work, and it sounds like this will continue to be an initiative for the FTC and the federal government and also the state government.
Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Really, thank you for joining us, and we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon. I truly appreciate it. And don’t forget to subscribe to our daily newsletter, The Morning Pulse, for all the news in one place.
Details, of course, at our website. And we’re back again tomorrow for another edition of BRN. Until then, I’m Jeff Snyder.
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