Commission chairman Datuk Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi said the proposal is being discussed with the Education Ministry. “We have 18.6 million Internet users in the country, and 37% of them are aged 24 and below. The same module is already being taught to National Service programme trainees, and it would be good if it could be expanded to the schools as well.
“Our children need to safeguard themselves from harm when they surf online,” he said after launching a Unicef research paper titled Exploring the Digital Landscape in Malaysia: Access and Use of Digital Technologies by Children and Young People during a function in Subang Jaya yesterday. Mohamed Sharil said parents are faced with rising challenges when their children are more tech-savvy than the older generation, and it would be difficult for the parents to teach Internet safety as they lacked the knowledge.
“Preventing children from the Internet is not the answer as they will only end up being digitally-backward. “It is, however, the responsibility of the parents to know what their children are looking at and who they are befriending online. “Having chats with children on the dangers of cyber-crimes, malicious websites and other online threats should be an important part of parents’ duties as well,” he added.
Mohamed Sharil said the public should not solely depend on MCMC alone to block harmful websites as new sites appear almost daily. “We have blocked more than 7,000 harmful websites, but there are still many more. “We are asking the people to take precautionary measures, and this module may be able to help guide children,” he added.
On online gambling activities, Mohamed Sharil said the move to block gambling websites is only a temporary measure and the MCMC is working with the police to shut them down. He added that those operating the sites were always trying to find a back door or loophole in the computer system and it was difficult for the authorities to trace them.
He was commenting on MCMC’s move to shut 172 illegal gambling websites.