Safer Internet Day: With AI usage peaking, how safe are you online

India has one of the largest cohorts of both Gen Z and senior citizens, both of whom are highly vulnerable to online risks such as cyber-bullying, sextortion, and financial fraud

On February 11, India, along with the rest of the world, observed Safer Internet Day. The idea behind having a ‘Safer Internet Day’ is to raise awareness about online safety and also to inculcate responsible and safe use of the internet by children and young adults.  

 

For India, this day has immense significance.  Its Gen Z population stands at 377 million, making it the single largest generational cohort ever to live in India, according to a Snapchat & Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report. In fact, this is the single largest Gen Z cohort in the world, according to INTO, a global education and recruitment consultancy. 

 

If India has the highest Gen Z population, the country is also going to see a significant number of its population in the senior citizen category. According to a UNFPA report, India will have as many as 347 million senior citizens by 2050. After teens and young children, this category is the most vulnerable to cybercrimes.  

 

This also means that there are as many teenagers and young children accessing the internet. According to the third edition of Snapchat’s Digital Well-Being Index, India recorded the highest rates of sextortion, a form of online blackmail where someone threatens to share private, often intimate, images or videos of a person unless they comply with the blackmailer’s demands.  

 

With artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) usage on the rise, many believe that the risks to these age groups are only going to increase. There is no denying that the use of these technologies have their advantage, but there remains an urgent need to understand what the right content and safe platforms for these groups are.  

 

For instance, Microsoft’s Global Online Safety Survey 2025, which included India, found that more than 80 per cent of respondents in India worry about the use of AI by children under 18 years.  

 

The biggest worries about AI usage include online abuse (76 per cent), deepfakes (74 per cent), generating scams (73 per cent), and AI hallucinations (70 per cent). AI hallucinations refers to a phenomenon when the AI model returns wrong or incorrect information because of a lack of sufficient training data.  

 

Moreover, 78 per cent of parents in India estimated their teens faced online risk, while as many as 82 per cent of teens themselves said they experienced online risk.  

 

The debate over how to stay safe online from such risks has been going on for years. While awareness is key, supporting mechanism and access to help is equally important. For instance, the Microsoft report highlights that when facing risks, teen typically react (block/mute) but they also overwhelmingly turn to parents for support.  

 

For adults, perhaps being part of the platforms that teens and children visit should also be mandatory.  

 

As part of the ‘Safer Internet Day’, Meta, the parent firm for social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced the availability of Instagram Teen Accounts in India.  

 

The protections on such accounts are specifically designed to tackle key concerns parents have, such as who their teens interact with online, the type of content they are exposed to, and how they manage their time on the platform. These safeguards are enabled by default, and for users under 16, any adjustments to make settings less restrictive would require parental approval, said Meta.  

 

Some of the features include private accounts, wherein a teen account is set to private, which means they need to approve the follower and non-followers cannot see or view their content. There will be messaging restrictions, sensitive content control, limited interactions, time limit reminders and the best ‘sleep mode’ that is enabled between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Importantly, parents also get supervisory tools.    

 

Google, for its part, is creating awareness among users through various programmes such as Digikavach ‘Mauka Gawao’ campaign. This is to raise awareness about common financial scams. So far, the programmes have reached 117 million Indians.  

 

For the search giant, Safer Internet Day also means securing its own platforms, which are used by millions to access services like search, payments, app ecosystem, and social media.  

 

The firm said that it scanned over 200 billion apps daily and identified over 13 million new malicious apps outside of Google Play using Google Play Protect.  

 

Under its Enhanced Play Protect program, which is in pilot stage, the firm protects users from app-based security threats. In India, the pilot reached 50 per cent coverage by January 21, 2025 after being launched in November 2024. As of January 31, 2025, it has blocked over 13.9 million installation attempts of potentially harmful apps, protecting 3.2 million devices. This translates to over 309,000 unique apps prevented from being installed on these devices.  

 

Google Pay, which is among the top five UPI payment platforms, prevented fraudulent transactions worth over Rs 13,000 crore on Google Pay and displayed 41 million warnings to safeguard Indian users, said the company.  

 

The Indian Computer Response Team (CERT-IN), the nodal agency to monitor data breaches and which launched the Digital Safety Compass Handbook, also asks users to be more aware and careful about their actions when online.  

 

“As a rule of thumb, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Common sense and proactive planning remain the strongest tools in cybersecurity. Safer Internet Day is a reminder to act—educate yourself, your staff, and your customers on cybersecurity by implementing security awareness training,” said Steve Stavridis, regional vice president (APAC), OpenText Cybersecurity.