With the help of their teacher Trent Colley, the students at Canobolas Rural Technology High School conducted a survey on the risks of identity theft, viruses, credit card use and the sharing of personal information on social networking sites including Facebook.

In the wake of a recent Olympic ticketing scam, the students felt compelled to make the results of their survey public.

Mr Colley said the students surveyed people at home, usually their parents and guardians, and asked them to rank certain online behaviours out of 10 according to risk.

“The main results were that people seemed quite confident and happy about putting their credit card details online,” he said.

Several of the students who conducted the survey wrote to the Central Western Daily to express their concerns about the lack of knowledge and trusting attitudes people had in regard to the internet.

Kristy Smith wrote: “the ignorance and misinterpretation of computing threats are actually increasing the damage of the pending threats.”

Mr Colley said the survey identified people were generally trusting when it came to paying online, opening emails and posting personal details.

“The survey showed that people have the attitude that it won't happen to them,” he said.

In the information and software technology elective, students learn about the ethics and dangers of computer use, as well as technical skills, to help them become savvy internet users.

Mr Colley said while social networking sites were blocked from school computers, it was harder for parents to restrict access to sites, particularly when they were not sure how the sites worked.

“The main issue for younger people was putting their personal details on websites like Facebook and MySpace. It’s easy for people to access those details. Older people didn’t rank Facebook so highly, because they don’t use it,”he said.