Netsafe Quarterly Report October – December 2023

Kia ora,

People are contacting Netsafe in record numbers with stories of online harassment, cyberbullying and racism and scams.

Quarter 2 for Netsafe in the lead up to Christmas is usually a quieter period for our helpline, but not so this quarter.  In this, the last quarterly report for 2023, it’s been a case of seven months this year having been the highest number of “reporting of incidents months” to Netsafe.

In quarter 1 (July-September) scams comprised of 18.7% of reports to Netsafe, this figure grew to 20.7% in quarter 2.

This quarter we have released a number of benchmark reports which paints a picture of the state of online harm in New Zealand.

During Fraud Awareness week (held on 12-18 November) with the focus on investment scams, we reflected on the Global Anti-Scam Alliance’s (GASA) recent research which indicates New Zealanders lost $2.05 billion to scams in the last 12 months. Here is the link to the full “State of Scams in New Zealand” report.

In December Netsafe released our 2023 state of online harm population research for New Zealand. Our research shows Māori, New Zealanders under the age of 30, those who are neurodiverse, and LGBTQIA+ community members, are at the forefront of digital harm and are being attacked online more than any other group. You can read the Annual Population report here, the Māori Population report here, the Online Hate Speech Report here or the trended results here.

This quarter saw our team work hard to create detailed briefings to incoming government officials and ministers on pressing online safety issues. See our Briefings to Incoming Ministers (BIMS) here. Each briefing is also linked in the Submissions and Advocacy section at the bottom of this Quarterly Report. By directly engaging with decision-makers, we aim to influence policies that safeguard the digital world for all. Please get behind some of our requests to Ministers and alert policy makers to our policy positions contained in our BIMS.

Finally Netsafe is excited to announce a new international collaboration with Save the Children, Australia ChildFund Australia, Netsafe and Meta.  Together we are working  to address online safety issues in the Pacific by responding to an awareness gap in the region of what and where to report. Additional funding will build on this work and support the dedicated national helpline function in PNG to receive reports about online safety concerns, including bullying, grooming, child sexual abuse material and other illegal content.

Ngā mihi,

Brent Carey
CEO, Netsafe