Online Safety: What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Wizz (26.5.23)
Welcome to our weekly online safety bulletin! Each week of the school term, we will provide useful tips, facts and guides on how to stay safe online.
This week's theme is: Wizz
Recently rising in popularity among children and young people, Wizz is a social networking app that allows users to chat live with people from around the world. In similar fashion to a dating app, it facilitates conversations with people that users would not ordinary meet – but of course, making connections to individuals online bring its own self-evident potential safety issues.
Wizz makes use of face recognition technology to assesses users’ age and group them by age group – but the software is far from perfect and is no guarantee that some individuals won’t attempt to exploit the app for sinister purposes. Our #WakeUpWednesday guide examines Wizz in detail, identifying pitfalls that parents and carers should be aware of.
In the guide you'll find tips on a number of potential risks such as catfishing, explicit content and “sextortion”, and examines how trusted adults can take young people to avoid these possible threats.
Useful links:
Internet Matters - This website has lots of practical advice and information, including detailed guides on how to set up parental controls on a range of devices.
Childnet - Help, advice and resources for parents and carers
Parent Zone - Digital advice, activities and ideas for parents and families
NSPCC - Online Safety advice, guides and news.
Visit our Online Safety page for more information.
Missed an update? Head over to our Online Safety Tip of the Week archive.
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