Habbo survey: Security conscious Aussie teens battle online threats

Staff Writers
Wednesday, 11 February 2009 16:36

IT Industry - Market

On line bullying and constant attempts to extract personal information for its misuse are part and parcel of life online for Australian teenagers, if the results of a survey of 2,800 teens are a fair representation of what goes on on the Internet.

Habbo, www.habbo.com.au which describes itself as “a professionally moderated online playground for Australian teenagers” says a survey it undertook in conjunction with Safer Internet Day, found that, whilst 60% of teens feel they are safe online, 69% admitted that they had been asked for personal information online by someone they did not know and almost 60% had been bullied online.
 
Jeff Brookes, Regional Director Asia Pacific for Habbo's parent company Sulake, said the survey of 2,858 Australians aged between 12 to 18 years, demonstrated that, despite teens being security savvy, cyber bullying, identify theft and face-to-face meetings still occurred on a regular basis.

"The findings from our online safety research reveal that Australian teenagers aged 13 to 18 are a security conscious generation and that online threats are consistent, with online bullying and requests for personal information from people not known to them.

“The majority of Australian teens understand the dangers of making personal information available by correctly reporting bullying behaviour, blocking or ignoring requests for information from people they don't know, but it is worrying that 23% of teenagers have met with people face-to- face that they have only known through the internet.”

Brookes said that, despite results indicating that Australian teens are protecting themselves against cyber threats, there were some results which suggested that there was still a concern about their safety, including:
• 23% of respondents said they had met with a person face-to-face that they have only known through the Internet
• When contacted online from someone they don't know, 22% of respondents said they reply and chat with the person.
• Over a quarter (31%) of Australian teens revealed that they knew someone who had their identity stolen online, and 7% have had their own identity stolen. 

Also of concern, says Brookes, is that according to the survey, a quarter of Australian teens do not talk to anyone about internet safety.

The Habbo survey revealed that even though the majority of teens (63%) said that their parents knew at least a fair amount of what they were doing online, only 23% were discussing cyber-safety issues with their parents. The majority discussed online safety with their friends (36%), while 6% discussed it with their teachers at school and only 4% said their parents knew nothing at all about what they were doing online.
 
Brookes said that, as part of Global Safer Internet Day this Thursday, Habbo was raising awareness of online safety within the virtual world through questionnaires, group pages, competitions and an online safety chat with a representative from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).