Over 550 calls made to 1480 helpline in first quarter

Over 550 phone calls were made to 1480 helpline providing support on safe internet use in the first quarter of this year, it was announced on Thursday.

Most of the calls related to cybercrime incidents.

From January 1 to March 31 this year, a total of 561 people contacted the helpline. Of them, 502 were related to the services of the helpline, while 59 calls (10.51 per cent) were not related to the services provided by Helpline 1480 and concerned information, among other things, on benefits and assistance from the labour ministry.

With regard to the 502 callers, 61.35 per cent (308 persons) were female and 38.65 per cent (194 persons) were male. In terms of the profile of the callers, the majority were adults at 99 per cent (497 people). Only 5 out of 502 callers, i.e. 1 per cent were minors (up to 18 years old) who called the 1480 Helpline to report personal difficulties on the Internet.

Regarding the reasons for contacting the helpline, most requests were related to incidents of cybercrime, 301 (59.96 per cent), i.e. dealing with privacy hacking, financial fraud or identity theft, via social networks or email. A significant number of calls were related to issues falling under the category of technical support, 97 (19.32 per cent).

Some 43 requests (8.56 per cent) related to data privacy complaints, in particular cases of use of callers’ information to create accounts or illegal publication of callers’ material by other users.

The data showed a slight increase in reporting incidents of sexual extortion (sextortion) (4.58 per cent), which increased to 1.59 per cent compared to last year’s 2022 report.

According to the data, more calls were made to 1480 compared to the same period last year, which recorded 402 calls.

The 1480 Helpline operates as part of the European Project CyberSafety – A better Internet for children in Cyprus, aiming to ensure that all users can receive real-time advice and support from expert advocates on issues related to the use of the Internet and digital technologies.

The data are provided by the Cyprus Peadagogical Institute of the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth, as the coordinator of the Cyprus Internet Safety Centre – CYberSafety (https://www.cybersafety.cy) and Helpline 1480, (https://cybersafety.cy/stats/).

Anyone can contact the 1480 Helpline by calling, free of charge, 1480 on Monday – Friday, 9am – 1pm & 3 – 6pm, and Saturday 10am – 1pm) or by sending an e-mail to 1480helpline@cyearn.pi.ac.cy.