National Seniors Safety Week begins next Tuesday and the initiative this year includes important information about technology.
Stats Canada says that seniors are the fastest growing segment of internet users in Canada. According to the agency 69 per cent of Canadians aged 55 to 64, and 18 per cent of those 75 years and older own a smartphone.
Lewis Smith, National Project Manager of the Canada Safety Council, says that during the holiday season trusting seniors are often a target for scammers.
“Groups, for better or worse, tend to prey on the more vulnerable groups of society. Because seniors have a more inherent tendency to be more trusting, too often that group does become a target. We want to get seniors to realise that they could be at risk if they don’t take action,” Smith said.
The week of November 6th to 12th focuses on senior citizen safety on smartphones because as the holidays approach, scams tend to increase. Smith also said that scams tend to evolve and it’s not enough to protect against one type of scam.
“It’s far more important to protect your information generally,” Smith notes.
There is a thin line between being connected and oversharing on social media. Below are some tips from the Canada Safety Council to help you protect your privacy and avoid over-sharing on social media:
- Never share passwords, banking information, your social insurance number or any other private information online. This tip may seem like common sense, but there may come a time where you need to share this information with a family member. Instead of sending this information online, it is more prudent to call them or, ideally, deliver the information in person.
- Set strong and unique passwords or passphrases such as “ILoveMyGrandkids349*)” for your accounts and enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for added protection; with 2FA, you need to authenticate yourself with something in addition to your username and password, such as a code that is sent to your device by text.
- Switch your social media profile to “private” in order for you to hide your information from users you have not accepted as friends.
- Regularly review and update your privacy and permission settings so that you’re comfortable with what information you’re sharing and with whom.
- Don’t accept friend requests from strangers or those you don’t know.
- Be mindful of what you post and share, including information you may be unknowingly sharing. For instance, posting photos while on vacation is an indication that you’re not at home. You may also be inadvertently sharing the location in which the photos and/or videos were taken. This is done through the process of geo-tagging, which adds geographical location data to photos or videos. To enhance your privacy, turn geotagging off in your phone settings and wait to share vacation photos until you return.
Additional tips could protect information on your phone or tablet by implementing these steps.
- Set up a passcode on your device so no one can access your phone or tablet without your permission and update your settings so that your phone automatically locks after a period of inactivity.
- Most smartphones have a feature allowing you to locate your phone remotely in-case you lose it, or delete data or disable it if it is stolen. Be sure this feature is activated. (Find my iPhone on iOS or Find My Device on Android)
- Erase all content and settings (iOS) and/or perform a factory reset (Android) on your phone before giving it away or recycling it. This will wipe the phone clean of all your data and is more secure relative to manually deleting the information on your phone item by item.
- When using free Wi-Fi in public places, be cautious of what information you transmit over the internet:
-Don’t download any software updates over public Wi-Fi. It is an easy way to accidentally introduce a virus onto your device.
-Avoid surfing sites that require you to log in, but if you can’t avoid it, make sure the URL of the website starts with HTTPS and not HTTP. This indicates an added layer of data encryption.
-Refrain from doing any online shopping to protect your credit card information.
- When downloading apps, read the privacy and permission agreements. These outline what information of yours is shared with the developer when you agree to their terms.
