Norton Adds New Features to Boost Safety as Parents Send Children Back to School

NortonLifeLock, a global leader in consumer Cyber Safety, today introduced new features to Norton Family that provide an easy, safe and secure way for parents to remotely supervise their children with location-based boundaries and alerts.

“As children of all ages return to school in-person, many parents will want to be aware of their kids’ whereabouts as they spend more time outside the home,” said Gagan Singh, chief product officer at NortonLifeLock. “We’ve added new personalized features to our Norton Family product to help make it easier and more secure for parents to be connected with their children who are on the go.”

Norton has added new features to Norton Family, including:

• Favorite Locations: Helps parents establish approved geographic locations as favorite locations. Once set, parents will receive notifications when their child’s device arrives or departs those set locations.
• Alert Me: Automatically allows parents to easily stay informed about their child’s location. Parents can set specific dates and times to receive automatic check-in alerts from the location of their child’s device.

With parental controls to address Cyber Safety risks and establish healthy online habits, Norton Family provides a truly holistic solution for parents to help ensure their children are protected and staying safe online. As the school year begins across the country, these parental controls and safety measures are even more important as children spend an increasing amount of time online across multiple devices for education purposes. To help children of all ages stay safe this school year, Norton has provided the following tips for parents to manage cyber risks:

Talk About Cyber Safety Early: A recent study conducted online by The Harris Poll found that Americans think conversations about online safety should start young, with more than 4 in 5 Americans (84%) feeling it’s absolutely essential or very important for parents to teach their children about Cyber Safety. As young children enter school and start to establish their independence, it’s important to provide a basic understanding of online safety by addressing topics like:

• The dangers of the internet, including suspicious activity, phishing scams and what to do if something seems unusual. Make it clear that laptops and devices should never be left unattended and that lock screens should be used to add further protection.
• Cyberbullying and the dangers of online predators. Parents can set rules that their young children can only chat or game online with people whom they’ve already met in real life.
• The importance of creating strong passwords that are not recycled for multiple accounts or are easy to guess.

Digitally-savvy Tweens and Teens Still Need Guidance: Tweens and teens may be more digitally advanced than ever before, but that doesn’t mean they have the best judgment when it comes to staying safe online. Parents of children in this age group can further protect their kids by educating them on the following:

• The importance of protecting their identity. It’s important to remind children not to reveal too much information about themselves online. For example, a teen may not think twice about sharing a picture of their license after passing their driver’s test, but that could provide a treasure trove of sensitive and valuable information for identity thieves and cybercriminals.
• The importance of keeping privacy settings on to ensure personal information isn’t intercepted by a hacker.
• Mitigating risks when connecting to public Wi-Fi. As teens may go to coffee shops or public libraries to complete school assignments individually or in a group setting, make it clear that cybercriminals consider public Wi-Fi an easy access point to get hold of sensitive data and encourage them to take steps to protect their online privacy and security by using a VPN.