MCPF URGES THE SETTING UP OF SOCIAL SITE GUIDELINES

PENANG, July 18, 2012 - Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation (MCPF) has urged the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE) to provide a guideline for students in schools on how to surf the social networking site, Facebook in particular, safely.

MCPF vice-chairman Datuk Kamarudin Ali, said the guidelines were important to ensure that students will not make any mistakes and resulting in them getting involved in crime.

He said that children are excited when exposed to a variety of information such as to daily events, family and others can render them targets of crime such as kidnapping, assault, abuse, sodomy, rape and murder.

“Hence MCPF hopes that all parties including parents will monitor children's activities on social networking sites and teach our children not to disclose any personal information.

“We should prevent this problem from the beginning when it was not widespread. Adults can also be fooled by a variety of tricks on social networking sites, even more so for a child,” he said at a press conference here today.

He said this in a press conference after opening a seminar at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) here today on Family Safety Responsibility, Our Responsibility: Children and Crime.

The one-day seminar, attended by 380 students from Form One to Six from 38 schools, serving to create awareness and to increase understanding of children about the realities and challenges, the source of criminal threats, their role and preventive measures that can be implemented when there is any criminal threat affecting them.

A forum titled Children and Crime, chaired by School of Social Sciences lecturer Prof. Dr. P. Sundramoorthy, was also held in conjunction with the seminar.

In the panel were USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Industry and Community), Prof. Dato’ See Ching Mey, Penang police chief, DCP Dato' Wira Ayub Yaakob and USM Psychologist, Dr. Mohd. Affandy Yusof.