Safer Internet Day 2025: How to protect yourself from scams

Gaming is really fun - but it's important to watch out for scams

Safer Internet Day is marked every year in the UK, and it's all about staying safe online.

The day is themed around a different topic each year, and for 2025 the theme is Too good to be true? Protecting yourself and others from scams online.

It's taking place on Tuesday 11th February 2025 and is run by the UK Safer Internet Centre, who work with young people to provide tips about how to stay safe online.

But what are scams, and how can you protect yourself from them?

What are scams?

Scams are tricks to get people to pay money or reveal personal information like passwords or bank details.

Often, these scams happen online, and may include things like setting up fake giveaways or selling misleading products.

Scams can also include something called phishing.

This is where someone is tricked into clicking on an unsafe link in a fake message, email or social media post that pretends to be something it's not in order to gain a person's trust.

This could look like a message from a company or public service you use or know well.

Most scams are targeted at adults, but some are aimed at children too.

For example, some young people have been tricked into unfair trades like giving items away on gaming platforms, and social media scams have also deceived younger users.

How can you spot a scam?

This year will be looking at how to stay safe from scams

The UK Safer Internet Centre has lots of advice for children on Safer Internet Day in order to stay scam-safe in 2025.

Make sure that you look out for signs that something can't be trusted:

• If something sounds too good to be true (like an in-game trade or social media giveaway) then it might be.

• Don't share personal information online and remember that not everyone can be trusted in games or online.

• Watch out for phishing and don't click on a links from unexpected messages, even if it looks like someone you know or a company you've heard of.

Always speak to a trusted adult if you're worried about something you see online, or if you think you might have been scammed.

Scams can happen by people pretending to be someone that you might trust

What's happening for Safer Internet Day 2025?

BBC Teach will be showing a special Safer Internet Day Live Lesson from 11am on Tuesday 11th February, online and on the CBBC channel.

They'll be playing a Scam Smashers game, which your class can take part in, to try and use detective skills to beat the scammers.

The UK Safer Internet Centre also want to use the day to think about questions for the future of online safety, like what effect artificial intelligence (AI) might have on scams, and what the government can do to tackle this.