A bunch of students at a private school in Kerala recently discovered that a seemingly innocent act of installing a mobile app on their mobile phone could lead to them losing all their personal pictures and documents along with email and passwords.

Thanks to a programme called ‘Web Rangers,’ started by Google, about 5,000 students across the country now know how to be protected against cyber bullying, exploitation and harassment.

Tie up with Consumer Voice Google has collaborated with Consumer Voice, a voluntary organisation in interest of consumer education, to train about 50 representatives. The programme has been launched in 11 States, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

“Children nowadays have access to the internet through computers as well as mobile devices, and they are playing games, watching videos, in some cases using social media. For them, our programmes focus on ensuring they are not exposed to inappropriate content, that they understand the repercussions of what they share, they know about maintaining their privacy and are protected from things like cyber bullying, sharing personal details, harassment, exploitation,” Sunita Mohanty, Director Trust and Safety, Google, told BusinessLine .

The company is using a network effect wherein each of the 50 representatives train other consumer activists. Already over 400 consumer activists have been trained on the basics of online safety. While such risks should be a worry for the entire internet population in India, it is also becoming a concern for internet companies that fear such incidents can also lead to people shying away from the worldwide web completely.

Google, whose Android operating system runs on over 90 per cent of internet-enabled mobile phones in India, is therefore embarking on such projects to create awareness around safe online behaviour and also ensure that people maintain their trust on Android and other Google apps.

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