Only 45 % of Hyderabadis, who became the victims of cybercrime report the fraud, while 24 % feel that they don’t want to get into the hassle of dealing with police.
This was revealed in a survey conducted by OLX online market on the occasion of Safer Internet Day which will be observed on Tuesday. The survey also stated that 61 % of people living in the State capital are at risk of cybercrimes. “Over 51 % of Hyderabadis feel confident transacting offline than online and 45 % people often skip reading safety and privacy tips and terms on websites/apps as they feel they are too long and don’t have time,” it stated.
The survey report which is possession with The Hindu also revealed that 51 % of parents regularly monitor the kind of content their children are accessing on the Internet and 61 % people share their mobile numbers and addresses online. The study was conducted to understand the state of awareness and cyber safety preparedness, thereby raising the need towards creating a safer and inclusive internet for everyone.
It reveals a startling gap in digital literacy and cyber safety practices exercised by the netizens. “Safer Internet Day provides us with an opportunity to examine our online behaviour and emphasises upon the need to close the gap in digital literacy in general and cyber safety particularly. Cyber safety is a shared responsibility where Internet users, Internet companies, government and decision-makers are all in one ecosystem,” said Lavanya Chandan, General Counsel, OLX India.
Safeguarding ourselves and ensuring that we focus on making the Internet an inclusive place for all is our foremost vision and we aim to drive continuous conversations around the topic, he said. “It has been our continuous endeavour to advocate the cause of cyber safety into the mainstream consciousness and provide netizens with the right tools to safeguard their online presence,” Mr. Chandra said.
According to him, the overall survey indicates that even though we have come far in digital transformation in our daily lives, the majority of people in India prefer to transact offline and even if they do transact online, they do it for money transfer, online shopping and paying utility bills.
“Only 48% of the people surveyed across the country would want to report the fraud if they were defrauded and they accept having missed exercising basic precautionary measures like not sharing personal and confidential information publicly or reading safety privacy tips and terms on websites and apps,” he said.