With youngsters becoming Internet savvy in the rapidly emerging world of computer technology, cyber crimes and misuse of Internet have also taken an upward curve.

To help put a check on this, Google India, as a part of their BeNetSmart awareness initiative, carried out an awareness campaign in nine schools in Kolkata on Tuesday.

“We decided to start a campaign to help students know how to avoid misuse of the internet and inculcate in them the best cyber practices,” said Rishi S Jaitly, policy analyst, Google India Pvt Ltd. The team interacted with 5,000 students in the city, added Jaitly.

The nationwide programme first took off from Mumbai and Chennai after which it came to Kolkata. In this campaign, Kolkata Police assisted Google India in educating school students about proper internet usage.

According to Jaitly, the Internet and Mobile Association of India, along with the police, are a part of this campaign.

The students were given tips to never disclose personal information like name, phone number, passwords or birth date online to anyone whom they do not know, to never reply to mails or chat with unknown people, to make sure that the names included in their contact list are known to them, not to meet anyone known through Internet outside without an elder’s presence and never to fill out any forwarded questionnaires, even if they were from friends.

“I use the Internet for research and chatting. Today I learnt some rules to check its misuse,” said Soumya Bhowmick, class XI student of Ballygunge Government High School.

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