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Safer Internet Day: 8th February
Safer Internet Day: 8th February
Safer Internet Day (SID) is a global event that brings together millions of people to promote a safer, more positive digital world. While often associated with the second week of February, for 2026, the global day of focus is Tuesday, 10 February 2026.
Below is an overview of the event, with a deep dive into this year's specific focus on Artificial Intelligence.
Theme Explained: "Smart Tech, Safe Choices"
The 2026 focus is a direct response to the "AI revolution" that has moved from science fiction to everyday reality. From chatbots helping with homework to algorithms deciding what videos we see next, AI is everywhere.
1. Empowering Critical Thinking
The "Safe Choices" part of the theme emphasizes that we shouldn't just be passive consumers of tech. The goal is to teach users—particularly young people—how to:
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Identify AI-generated content: Recognizing deepfakes or AI-written text.
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Understand Bias: Realizing that AI can inherit the prejudices of its creators or the data it's trained on.
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Question Reliability: Understanding that a chatbot "hallucinating" (making things up) is a real risk.
2. Privacy and Data Security
Smart technology often requires data to function. This year's campaign highlights the "hidden" side of AI:
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How personal data is used to train models.
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The importance of not sharing sensitive personal information with public AI tools.
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Securing "Smart Home" devices (Internet of Things) that use AI to listen or monitor environments.
3. AI for Good
It’s not all warnings! Safer Internet Day 2026 also celebrates how AI can make the internet safer. This includes:
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Better automated detection of cyberbullying.
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AI tools that help identify and remove illegal content faster than human moderators ever could.
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Personalized learning tools that adapt to a student's specific needs.
How You Can Participate
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Role
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Action Item
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Parents
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Use the "Two-Minute Rule": Ask your child to show you one AI tool they’ve used this week and discuss how it works.
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Educators
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Run a "Fact or Bot" workshop where students try to guess which images or stories were created by AI.
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Everyone
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Update your passwords and enable 2-Step Verification (2SV) on all accounts linked to smart devices.
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