Get Safe Online - Get Top Gear

I was at the Get Safe Online launch in London today, where not only did I get to meet Top Gear’s high-speed Richard Hammond over a coffee but also recorded his little speech on internet safety for you.

Research from Get Safe Online has found that over three quarters of the UK’s population (83 per cent) don’t know enough about protecting themselves online. Nearly half (42 per cent) of the population rely on friends and family for online safety advice rather than finding expert information for themselves. This lack of education, which Get Safe Online aims to address, threatens to undermine confidence in an online retail economy is worth £10bn a year. An estimated 14m use online banking

The idea is of course that everyone goes online, checks out the website and learns to avoid all the nasty pitfalls that go hand in hand with the internet. In fact the timing couldn’t be better, as I have to go and help rescue Captain Bob’s PC tomorrow, as he tells me a virus has eaten all his email!

One good quip this morning was from Sharon Lemon, the head of the national Hi-tech Crime Unit, who, referring to the dangers presented by internet chat rooms, said there’s no other place “Where you’ll make up a name for yourself and start talking smut to complete strangers.”

Richard Hammond, BBC Top Gear and Brainiac presenter launches the Get Safe Online Initiative in London on 28th October 2005