The Cybersmile Foundation: Sharezees x UO
We’ve partnered up with The Cybersmile Foundation to support its latest awareness campaign, Sharezees. The collaborative collection discourages young adults to share their password and security PIN codes – a habit that can have devastating consequences. Read on to find out more.
What is Cybersmile?
The Cybersmile Foundation is a multi-award-winning non-profit organisation committed to digital wellbeing and tackling all forms of bullying and abuse online. They work to promote kindness, diversity and inclusion by building a safer, more positive digital community and encouraging people to realise their full potential without the fear of ridicule and abuse. Through education and the promotion of positive digital citizenship, The Cybersmile Foundation reduces incidents of cyberbullying and provides professional help and support services to children and adults around the world.
Why is their campaign important?
Password sharing is a real issue. Every year, Cybersmile alone receives about 800 requests for help from people who have shared a password with a close friend or partner for the relationship to turn bad, and the friend or partner to use that password to share personal information, or maybe impersonate that person online to embarrass them.
Though Cybersmile will do everything they can to help those who need it, they want to get more young adults to realise the potential dangers of sharing passwords and stop these issues before they happen.
The Sharezees Collection
We know best mates want to share everything with each other. They share fun times, clothes and experiences. And why not? Of course they should share everything, except their passwords.
As friendships change, sharing passwords causes the risk of people impersonating you online or posting photos of you that you really don’t want the whole world seeing. They can change your password and lock you out of your account, which is far from ideal.
In creating ridiculously fun pieces designed to be worn and shared (literally), the collection highlights how you may be able to trust someone enough to share a jogger leg, but that doesn’t mean you should trust them with your password.
Featuring in the campaign is Cybersmile ambassador Arabella Daho @amazingarabella and body positive activist, Izzie Rodgers @izzierodgers. Arabella recently posted, “my friend and I share everything, EXCEPT our passwords. Real friends don’t need to know that stuff and would never ask.”
Cybersmile’s Top 5 Password Safety Tips
1. Never share your password with anyone even if it’s your best friend.
2. Create a complex password that includes a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters and at least one special character to help avoid having your account hacked.
3. Enable multi-factor authentication to create an extra layer of security when accessing your accounts.
4. Respond quickly and never ignore notifications of accounts being used on another device or even a password change request. Reset your password and ensure double factor authentication is enabled with a mobile phone for additional protection.
5. Get in contact with Cybersmile for any additional help and support.
How can I help?
Find out more here and together we can convince young adults that sharing passwords is really weird.
The Cybersmile Foundation is a multi-award-winning non-profit organisation committed to digital wellbeing and tackling all forms of bullying and abuse online. They work to promote kindness, diversity and inclusion by building a safer, more positive digital community and encouraging people to realise their full potential without the fear of ridicule and abuse. Through education and the promotion of positive digital citizenship, The Cybersmile Foundation reduces incidents of cyberbullying and provides professional help and support services to children and adults around the world.
Why is their campaign important?
Password sharing is a real issue. Every year, Cybersmile alone receives about 800 requests for help from people who have shared a password with a close friend or partner for the relationship to turn bad, and the friend or partner to use that password to share personal information, or maybe impersonate that person online to embarrass them.
Though Cybersmile will do everything they can to help those who need it, they want to get more young adults to realise the potential dangers of sharing passwords and stop these issues before they happen.
The Sharezees Collection
We know best mates want to share everything with each other. They share fun times, clothes and experiences. And why not? Of course they should share everything, except their passwords.
As friendships change, sharing passwords causes the risk of people impersonating you online or posting photos of you that you really don’t want the whole world seeing. They can change your password and lock you out of your account, which is far from ideal.
In creating ridiculously fun pieces designed to be worn and shared (literally), the collection highlights how you may be able to trust someone enough to share a jogger leg, but that doesn’t mean you should trust them with your password.
Featuring in the campaign is Cybersmile ambassador Arabella Daho @amazingarabella and body positive activist, Izzie Rodgers @izzierodgers. Arabella recently posted, “my friend and I share everything, EXCEPT our passwords. Real friends don’t need to know that stuff and would never ask.”
Cybersmile’s Top 5 Password Safety Tips
1. Never share your password with anyone even if it’s your best friend.
2. Create a complex password that includes a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters and at least one special character to help avoid having your account hacked.
3. Enable multi-factor authentication to create an extra layer of security when accessing your accounts.
4. Respond quickly and never ignore notifications of accounts being used on another device or even a password change request. Reset your password and ensure double factor authentication is enabled with a mobile phone for additional protection.
5. Get in contact with Cybersmile for any additional help and support.
How can I help?
Find out more here and together we can convince young adults that sharing passwords is really weird.