Optus Digital Thumbprint celebrates Safer Internet Day 2025

Optus is supporting Safer Internet Day 2025 (11 February) a global day dedicated to making the internet a safer, more positive place. During the month of February over 5,200 primary and secondary school students throughout NSW and Victoria will participate in free, facilitator-led workshops as part of the  Optus Digital Thumbprint Program, a Trusted eSafety Provider program, with many more nationally engaging in virtual, teacher-led workshops.

Safer Internet Day in Australia is an initiative led by the eSafety Commissioner.

Events such as Safer Internet Day highlight the importance for parents and carers to talk to their children about digital safety.  Indeed, it’s something all adults can role model for the young people in their lives. With the digital landscape rapidly evolving, this isn’t easy.  Our research shows that the key digital safety issues for young people continue to be cyberbullying, cybersecurity, and fake content.

Nearly half of young people don’t know how to protect themselves from cyberbullying.

Creating safe spaces online continues to be challenging and 46% of teens in our Digital Thumbprint evaluation* share that their biggest issue when faced with cyberbullying is knowing how to protect themselves.  This is closely followed with 44% not knowing why they’ve been targeted in the first place.

If your child is experiencing cyberbullying, where to start and what to do can be difficult to navigate. A good place to start are our cyberbullying guides for young people and families. It provides conversation guides to get you started on hard to navigate topics, and support to:

• Recognise the types of cyberbullying
• Understand why it’s important to do something about cyberbullying
• Respond appropriately to the situation
• How to report to platforms and eSafety
• Finding more help if you need it

Two thirds struggle with protecting personal information

Starting an online account means sharing information with your friends, followers or the people you play against. Your child may not understand that sharing certain information may put them at risk or understand how to protect the information they do share on their profiles or in a gaming chat. Protecting personal information is important to keeping your child safe online.

Digital defence skills such as using passwords or passphrases, and multi-factor authentication are great digital defence skills, however 62% of young people say they struggle to create and remember them. According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre, using a passphrase where possible is ideal, as they are more complex and longer than a usual password and therefore can be harder to crack.

Follow these tips to create a strong passphrase:

• Longer - Four or more random words and usually more than 14 characters
• Unpredictable - Not a sentence or popular phrase
• Unique - Different for every account

Understanding if content is real or fake

With the rise of deep fake and Generative AI technology, it’s not surprising that young people re struggling to know what’s real or fake online.  Some 44% find it hard to tell if content is made with Gen AI, and nearly 60% say their biggest challenge is accessing the credibility of the information. This can leave them exposed to scam threats so it’s a good idea to talk to your child about how criminals try to trick people.

Our ‘Stay ahead of scams through family discussions’ guide shares the common types of scams, some of the methods criminals use, and conversation starters to open the space. If your children are younger, consider starting them with our Passphrase Colouring and Activity Sheet.  The aim with these is to build familiarity with digital safety terms and make protecting personal information a normal part of being online.

For young people

• Blocking unwanted contact guide
• Cyberbullying quiz
• Cyberbullying: what to do when things go wrong guide
• Digital Balance quiz
• Fake friends and fake profiles quiz
• Hackers, scammers and fake friends guide
• Lifehacks for a balanced time online guide
• Passphrases, passwords and MFA guide and quiz
• Protecting personal information quiz
• Scammers and fake friends quiz

For Families

• Balancing time online guide
• Blocking unwanted contact for your child guide
• Cyberbullying: What to say when things go wrong online guide
• First Phone Readiness guide and quiz
• Passphrases, passwords and MFA for your child guide
• Recognising hackers, scammers and fake friends guide
• Safeguard your child’s privacy on popular apps and games guide
• Stay ahead of scams through family discussions guide

eSafety Commissoner to report cyberbullying, image-based abuse, and illegal and restricted content

Australian Cyber Security Centre Australian Cyber Security Centre to report cybercrime, including online threats and abuse, scams and hacks, data breaches, identity theft and fraud.

Scamwatch to report scams.

Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation to report online grooming and inappropriate contact

IDCARE to get identity theft, data breach, scam and cyber security support.

If your child needs to talk to someone about their feelings or worries, they can contact:

Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 for free, private and confidential 24/7 phone and online counselling services.

13YARN on 13 92 76 (24/7) for a free, private and confidential talk with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Crisis Supporter.

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