Police issue online safety advice for new devices

Police have issued some simple safety tips if your children have received a new phone, games console or any electronic device for Christmas. 

Derbyshire Constabulary has released the following advice which they recommend parents taking a few minutes to read: 

• Make sure you set up PINs or passcodes on phones and smartwatches.
• Set up parental controls – they can be used to block upsetting or harmful content and apps, control purchases and manage how long your child spends online.
• Regularly check your child’s devices for inappropriate searches or messages.
• Make sure your child’s social media profiles are locked down and set to private so that only their friends can read them.
• Make sure your child’s online gaming profiles are locked down – privacy settings can usually be found in the account manager section.
• Be aware of in-app purchases such as Loot Boxes, coins, skins and game expansion packs. If your child doesn’t understand the cost associated with these you could end up spending more than you realise. You can turn off in-app purchases through parental controls.
• Set up a child’s account for consoles. This will allow you to manage your child’s experience and other settings such as: what features they can access, whether they can exchange photos and videos with other users, in-game purchases etc.
• Set up parental controls for consoles, this will allow you to restrict communication with other players, restrict viewing content created by other players, restrict access to web browsers, set play time limits etc.
• Make sure that you know how to block players.