Let’s Prioritise Safety of Children Online – Child Online Africa
ChildOnline Africa, an online safety advocate organization is predicting doom for Ghana and Africa’s security in the next few years if they failed to safeguard children in the online digital space. The Executive Director, Awo Aidam Amenyah, explained that if measures are not put in place to check the current issues pertaining to online activities, it will have dire implications on the country and the sub-region in the next few years. She said children are being groomed on internet fraud, while others are vulnerable to sexual exploitations which could lead to suicides and other negative activities online. “We have some …
You Need Your Child’s Say-So to Post Their Picture Online – Advocate
The Executive Director of Child Online Africa, Awo Aidam Amenyah has called on parents and guardians to seek the consent of their children first before posting their images on social media. At a day’s training for selected journalists on online safety for children organised by Child Online Africa and AF Academy held in Accra on Wednesday, 21 August 2019, Amenyah said it was wrong for parents to post their children’s pictures on social media arbitrarily. Child Online Africa is an organisation working to ensure that young people in Ghana are able to use technology and the internet safely and responsibly. …
How To React To Harmful Online Content
It is worrying to note that most people especially parents have been alarmed at the Momo Challenge on YouTube. Two weeks ago we published an article about the importance of the 21st Century Digital Literacy skills which includes News Literacy: ability to determine between fact and fiction and not to take news on face value (also known as fake news phenomenon). The fundamental truth about media literacy is that one can determine how to direct traffic to a particular website for effect which was the case in the so-called Momo challenge where one social media post sparked the discussion about …
Reading For Progress: Text vrs Digital?
One of the five pillars of the Year of Reading concept being promoted by the Ghana Library Authority is LITERACY. The Oxford dictionary defines literacy as the ability to read and write. The key to literacy is reading development, a progression of skills which begins with the ability to understand spoken words and decode written words, and which culminates in the deep understanding of text. It is necessary we take into consideration how today’s changing technological landscape offers both promise and challenges to literacy instruction. But it is critical to fit technology into education and discuss how literacy education can meet society’s increasing …
The Irony of Data Privacy in Ghana
Data privacy, also referred to as information privacy, is the aspect of information technology (IT) that deals with the preparedness of an organization or individual to decide what data about him/her in a computer system can be shared with third parties. The Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the legislation which has replaced the Data Protection Directives 95/46/EC. This regulation has become necessary in order to balance the protection of individual’s privacy rights as well as the rights of organizations and governments to collect and use data for business and administrative purposes. The new data protection law took effect from …
AU Commission Needs To Do More On Child Online Protection & Safety
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child mandates States “… to protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.” Although this Charter was adopted since 1990, Africa has fallen quite short of this goal. Child Online abuse pervades all States on the continent and it is important for the African Union to ensure that all children are afforded equal protection, respect and security. It is quite disappointing that despite cooperative effort in defining, strengthening and giving orientation regarding Information Society in Africa, such as the adoption of the AU Convention on Cyber Security …