Using the internet for economic freedom of women

How do we prevent women are becoming victims of Cyber Crimes. We all are using internet so we all know that women are being stalked and are also being harassed online. How can we stop this? More importantly how can we ensure the internet is a safe zone for women to do business and learn about economic independence.

The changing environment needs us to think of new and innovative ways to stay safe, and grow. Women also have the right to feel free and be free, people cannot threaten us, as we deserve equality to empower ourselves.  Safe access to internet is crucial for all the people, so that we can connect with the those who bring us access and opportunity.

The changing environment needs us to think of new and innovative ways to stay safe, and grow.

The advances in information and technologies offers us a revolution in the way people interact among each other, access information, communicate, access services, bring a network to use, work, live, and more. According to this report, these developments have a strong potential for the empowerment of women. Given the opportunity, new kinds of risks have also emerged in terms of risks/threats posed, that need to be identified and addressed appropriately by policy makers and society as a whole.

I believe it's time for us to recognise that if women are not in control of their own internet usage and privacy, then the opportunity will be lost. So here are ways to be smarter about the internet. A McKinsey report calls the internet a great transformer.

Digitalization puts forth a range of opportunities for women empowerment and for a more equal women participation in labor markets, financial markets, and entrepreneurship. Currently, digitalization seems to favor female labor force that faces lower risk of being replaced by machines, as compared to male labor force. Women’s often superior social skills, and creative skills represent a relative positive in the digital age, and this is particularly so when social skills are complemented with higher education and advanced digital literacy. A G20 insights reports says, "barriers and deficits that obstruct women’s current advancement in many G20 countries may deprive them from many beneficial opportunities in the digital age. Major efforts by G20 governments are required to invalidate these barriers. Rendering women better access to the new digital technologies seems a promising starting point for such efforts, and for thereby achieving the goal of gender equality."

The measures we can take to be safe from cybercrimes:

Firstly, the most important measure is that we should not give our passwords to any personas it is our personal information, we should change our password every 90 days. We should be careful when use our password on public computers.

Secondly, we should only share necessary things. We should not give excessive information on social media platforms as they can be harmful for us. Reveal as much as needed, as some people can take advantage of what you have posted on the internet.

Thirdly, we can block the people we don’t want to show our information. we should ignore the request of people we don’t know. So that we can be safe.

Lastly, if you think somebody is harassing you, stalking you, or you are feeling unsafe then directly go to the cybercrime department near you or have a talk with a local domestic violence victim advocate.

Komal Premchandani is a student of ARCH College of design, jaipur and this effort is a part of Google India and SheThePeople initiative Digital Trust Dialogues across colleges in India.