Calls mount for parents to prioritize online safety as AI advances and deepfakes pose risks to children

Safeguarding your children online The head of Youth Diversion, which deals with at-risk teens, says parents need to take digital literacy seriously. Sanjay Maru reports.

As artificial intelligence and deepfakes continue to become more refined, a Windsor father says it's time for parents to step up and take more interest in their children's online safety.

"It's just moving so fast. Just when I think I have a grasp on something, something new is out," said Steve Brown, co-founder of the Fantastic Fathers community group and father to a nine-year-old girl.

"I'll admit, with all this AI stuff that's out now ... Not only do we have to educate our kids, we have to educate ourselves."

To get some answers, Brown reached out to Youth Diversion executive director Joanna Conrad who has spent the last year hosting online safety presentations in Windsor's schools.

On June 2, she'll be bringing a version of that presentation to a wider audience at the WFCU Centre. Admission is free.

The presentation is not geared toward children. Rather, it's for parents. Conrad said, in her experience, she's learned that giving a long presentation to young children is proving to be ineffective.

"We're educating kids about a topic. But when they go home, they're not talking to their parents about it ... So we expect parents to communicate these messages at home but then the parents don't even know what message to communicate," said Conrad.

According to Conrad, parents nowadays have bought into a false idea that young children are entitled to absolute privacy. Instead, she wants to see parents supervise their children digitally as they would in real life.

"I always say to parents, if you're watching them in person to see how they're interacting with others, you should also do that online as well,” she said. “What kinds of talks are they having? Are they being considerate human beings?"

Conrad said she's aware of recent incidents in Windsor where youths have created deepfakes of people they know and shared it with strangers.

She has also observed an increase in the desire of some young people to "hypersexualize" their social media content.

Last week, Conrad said, she had to engage in a conversation with her six-year-old son about a sexual act he had learned about online.

"I would never expect my six-year-old to know about this. Yet, here we are, having to discuss that because he's aware of it," she said.

Conrad suggests parents follow her six "top tips" to keep their children safe:

"An absolute rule I have in my house with my kids is that there's no such thing as absolute privacy. Parents have a really hard time swallowing that one. Kids do for sure," said Conrad.

"Parents should know passwords. Parents should have full access to these devices. If they don't, you need to ask yourself, ‘why don't I? Who has the control?’ At the end of the day, it's the parent's device. It's not the kids' device."

In preparation for the presentation on Jun. 2, Brown said he has learned so much about the current dangers of social media — and it's important for all parents to take it more seriously.

"We have to take an active role in what your kids are doing on social media," said Brown.

"With AI and people being able to create a literal representation of yourself and putting you in God-knows-what situation out there for people to think is you, that scares me to death."

You can view more information about Conrad's online safety presentation using this link.