How safe is your child in a digital environment?

That kids are more at ease with mobile devices and other electronic gadgets than their parents is no surprise. What is more, parents, working or otherwise, are buying their children mobiles just to stay connected with them.

But how many parents ensure that the child is adequately protected and not influenced by disruptive messages and calls?

A study by Nischint Technologies, a provider of digital security solutions, has revealed that the firm has blocked 33 lakh objectionable sites on child devices. The study notes that mobile usage amongst children between 5 and 17 years of age is surprisingly high in India.

The data sourced by Nischint from 14,000 family devices (7,000 parent devices and an equal number of child devices) reveals that kids make calls to as many as 45 people every day, the number of text messages sent by kids is 18, while the promo messages received is marginally higher at 20.

“The trend signals that digitally savvy kids are susceptible to a plethora of cyber attacks and it is imperative that parents ensure an enjoyable yet secure digital experience for their children,” says Raghav Mimani, Chief Executive and Co-founder of Nischint.

“We have always looked to provide a secure solution for parents to monitor their kids' activities and protect them from threats and disruptive influences that lurk in the online and physical world. The app has received more than 20,000 downloads, out of which 4,000 users access the app on a daily basis, 7,000 users access Nischint every two days, and around 10,000 access the data once a week. Most of Nischint's traffic is from the Delhi NCR region, followed by Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai,” he said.

Nischint has helped parents set close to 16 lakh GPS fences to monitor kids' location.

The data trends were observed for 90 days between February and April 2015. The highlights of the study showed that kids make calls mostly between 7 pm and 8 pm and the average number of images taken each day is roughly five.

The average time spent by kids on social media sites such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Youtube is 3–4 minutes and the most used sites include Facebook.com, google.co.in, flipkart.com, and cricinfo.com.

Popular app downloads include WhatsApp, Youtube, Facebook, Snapchat, NDTV, Candy Crush, Learn to Draw, Lego Ninjago, and GTA

The company is looking to work with schools in India to ensure safe use of tablets in classrooms.

“We are in the process of integrating our solutions for telecom operators in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia,” says Mimani.

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