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The Cyprus Pedagogical Institute of the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth as coordinator of the Cyprus Safer Internet Centre (https:/www.cybersafety.cy) and the 1480 Helpline provides the update statistics for the 4th quarter of 2023 (1 October 2023 to 31 December 2023).
Detailed information on the statistics as well as statistics from previous periods can be found on the relevant HTTPS:/CYBERSAFETY.CY/STATS.
The 1480 Helpline (Helpline) aims to provide children and adolescents, young people, parents, teachers and the general public with advice and support services regarding the safe, responsible and ethical use of the Internet and digital technologies. From 1 October 2023 to 31 December 2023, a total of 1480 helplines were contacted by a total of 740 people. Of the total number of calls, 564 calls (76.2%) were related to helpline services, while 176 calls (23.8%) were not related to the services provided and were related to information, including information on benefits and assistance from the Ministry of Labour, Welfare and Social Security Mr.etc.
Regarding the total number of cases related to the services of the 1480 Helpline, 63.8% (N=360) were women/girls and 36.2% (N=204) were men/boys. Regarding the profile of the people who called for help and support, the majority were adults (N=553, 98%). A small percentage (N=11, 2%) were minors and contacted the 1480 Helpline to report personal difficulties on the Internet, such as cases of cyberbullying. It should also be noted that only 4.9% (N=27) of the calls from adults were made by parents/guardians and teachers and related to online difficulties for adolescents on the Internet.
Regarding the reasons for contacting the Line (Graph 1), the majority of requests were related to cybercrime incidents (N=405, 71.8%), i.e. dealing with privacy breaches (hacking), financial fraud or identity theft via social media or email. At the same time, a significant proportion of requests (N=61, 10.8%) related to issues falling under the category of technical support. A smaller proportion (N=31, 5.5%) related to incidents of sexual blackmail (sextortion) and also a notable proportion (N=26, 4.6%) related to incidents of cyberbullying. On the other hand, 2.1% (N=12) of calls involved data privacy complaints, specifically cases of callers' information being used to create accounts or publish callers' material by other users without their consent.
Finally, worth noting in this quarter is the 2.1% (N=12) of calls involving incidents of non-consensual sending or receiving of images and/or texts of sexual content via mobile and other devices (NCSII). These incidents involved cases in which non-consensual sending of personal intimate content to third parties, including minors were involved. In addition, it was observed that perpetrators, through the WhatsApp communication app, were seen to invite unsuspecting citizens to a video call by falsely pretending to communicate on behalf of the Police or appearing defiantly making inappropriate gestures. For this reason, the public is urged to be extra careful and not to answer video calls from unknown numbers.
The 1480 Helpline, aiming to provide continuous and quality advice and support in real time by trained Officers on issues related to the safe, responsible and ethical use of the Internet to children, adolescents and their families, continues to provide its services with the basic principle of ensuring that its services comply with National Law and are interwoven with the aspect of awareness and direct service.
All citizens can contact the 1480 Helpline by calling anonymously and toll-free on 1480 (opening hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 - 13:00 & 15:00 - 18:00 and Saturday 10:00 - 13:00), either by sending an email to 1480helpline@cyearn.pi.ac.cy, or via an online form on the website https:/www.cybersafety.cy/helpline-report.
Graph 1: Percentage of incidents by category for the reporting quarter
(IP/NG/EATH)
Contents of this article including associated images are owned by PIO
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or PIO
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