Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary are celebrating their year anniversary for Cyber Bobby

The Cyber Bobby Scheme was launched to promote public safety and the iniative aims to protect vulnerable people from cyber crime by offering people home visits, advice and basic IT security to help prevent people being targeted.

The services are on offer to people aged 65 and over, people that have previously been victims of a cyber crime and people with a disability.

The scheme will be entering into the second year and during the first year of the scheme 76 residents have been visited in Hampshire, 88 percent of these have been aged 60 and over.

The scheme is run by The Blue Lamp Trust which also runs the Bobby Scheme, which offers crime and fire safety advice to those who are most vulnerable, and they can also supply locks, door chains and smoke alarms.

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The cyber scheme touches on a number of areas involving technological crime including scam prevention advice, privacy settings, reporting issues and how to recognise scam emails and text messages.

One client said: ‘It was wonderful, I learnt lots. It is a great service and I appreciated the advisors being so patient with me.’

Collectively, volunteers for Cyber Advisors have donated over 135 hours of their time, visiting residents and giving talks to community groups about how to maintain safety whilst using technology.

If you organise a community group in Hampshire and would like a Cyber Bobby Advisor to come and give a talk people can get in touch via [email protected]