Netsafe New Zealand

If online safety is an issue close to your heart, consider supporting Netsafe's new Innovate for Impact fund. Online harm affects the mental, financial, and physical wellbeing of our community. Your support will contribute to the development of free 'tech for good' tools and programs that help all New Zealanders stay safe online. Check out Netsafe's many achievements over the past 25 years and see how your donation will help us continue to make a difference. Donate today to help create a safer online world for everyone! https://lnkd.in/g8r58Z9S

From 27 December to 5 January, Netsafe’s incident response service will be available from 9am-5pm. We have a reduced team operating over this period, apologies if it takes us longer than usual to respond to you. Netsafe is closed Christmas day, Boxing Day & New Years Day. Our usual service will resume Monday 6th January 2025. If you require immediate online safety assistance or your circumstances have changed you can call us on 0508 NETSAFE (0508 638 723). Netsafe wishes you a safe and merry Christmas.

Our Primary School programme – Hector's World™ - launched in May 2024. An animated series created for children aged 5-10, it is supported by te reo Māori translations, classroom and home resources for educators and parents to use for free. Through our close work with schools and parents, we knew that younger education was needed. A recent parent survey told us that 30% of New Zealand parents had/would introduce the first internet-enabled device to their children between the ages of 5-7, long before social media use typically begins. You can see more insights like this in our Year in Review report here: https://lnkd.in/gsAdxvmX

Netsafe is New Zealand’s representative for INHOPE (the International Association of Internet Hotlines). In May this year our COSO Sean Lyons was appointed INHOPE’s interim President.    Netsafe received 1,645 reports of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) in FY24.     The average content takedown time for CSAM in a country that has an INHOPE hotline (like NZ) is 2.5 days.    Without a hotline, it takes 28 days.    You can see more insights like this in our Year in Review report here: https://lnkd.in/gsAdxvmX

In terms of platforms cited when harm was reported to Netsafe in FY24, Facebook has the second-highest user base in New Zealand (after Instagram) and Facebook also has the largest percentage share of reports.    TikTok and Instagram had slightly higher report shares compared to their user percentages, whereas YouTube and WhatsApp has significantly lower reports shares than their user percentages.    You can see more insights like this in our Year in Review report here: https://lnkd.in/gsAdxvmX

There were 28,468 online harm reports to Netsafe in FY24. This is a 25% increase from the previous year. 6,272 reports were categorised as harmful digital communication complaints. Netsafe is the Approved Agency to process complaints under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. 14,115 reports to us were fraud or scams, with reported monetary losses totalling $22,468,141. Netsafe continues to advocate for this scam support work to be funded. Read our full Year in Review report here: https://lnkd.in/gsAdxvmX

Today our annual AGM takes place with our members and so tomorrow we will share our annual review for FY24 with the public.     With over 40+ pages of data, insights and case studies about the picture of online harm in New Zealand this year, it will also detail our activities both here and internationally, to combat it.    Keep an eye on our social channels this week for the highlights. 

Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a day dedicated to raising public awareness, understanding, and acceptance of disabilities. To try to support all our communities more inclusively, Netsafe has developed easy-read guides to help people stay safe online: https://lnkd.in/gC9Cf8jn #disabilityinclusion

During Cyber Monday, we see a sharp rise in courier scams targeting online shoppers getting their last orders in before Christmas.     To help you stay safe, we've put together our essential advice.     Read our tips to help keep your holiday shopping worry-free:    https://lnkd.in/gDMFu5AT 

Black Friday is prime time for scammers, but you don’t have to fall for their tricks.  Check out our helpful tips to shop safely, and make sure the sites you’re buying from are legitimate with our free website check tool: https://checknetsafe.nz/ https://lnkd.in/gpbD_wgV