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You wouldn’t take a walk through Central Park by yourself at 3 a.m. or let your children play in traffic. So why would you take unnecessary risks when it comes to your activities online?

We learn about basic safety from when we are young and with maturity, we become street smart. We know not to leave a wallet unattended, and that children should not talk to strangers. As adults, we often take these basic life skills for granted.

Younger generations who are growing up with the internet from an early age need to learn about safety online and offline the same. As for adults who didn’t grow up with the internet, they may be more at risk, the same way a child would be if dropped off in Central Park.

The online world is growing and changing just the same as the real world, presenting new safety challenges. The Canadian government site Get Cyber Safe offers some good suggestions for protecting your identity, money and family.

And identity thief will often try to pretend to be a reputable company that you already know or currently deal with and ask for or steal your personal information. If your identity has been stolen, you may find yourself receiving bills and seeing credit card charges you don’t recognize.

Here are some things you can do to protect yourself from identity theft:

• Choose strong passwords that are difficult to guess Adjust privacy settings on social media accounts to protect information you don’t want to share
• Shred letter mail with any personal details before putting them out for garbage or recycling
• Destroy old hard drives or memory sticks before disposing Avoid installing programs on your computer downloaded from the internet that you don’t need
• Be sure not to let anyone see you enter passwords on a transaction terminal or public computer

Here are some precautions you can take for protecting yourself when doing online transactions:

• Look for “https://” on web addresses as these are securely encrypted
• Update your anti-virus software and your browser
• After you are finished your online session, clear your cache/delete your history on your browser
• Avoid “auto fill” or “auto-remember” with your personal information and passwords

As for protecting your kids, be sure to talk to them about their online activities. Just as you may have to tell your child to go to bed 20+ times to get a result, so too reinforcing appropriate activities online is important for getting results. Having time limits for computer privileges can be helpful. Also, activate the parental controls on your computer’s security software and be sure to check on your kids when they go online.

Visit www.getcybersafe.gc.ca for more ideas on how you can be Cyber Safe.