Safer Internet Day 2026 is a good moment to reset how your organisation handles AI use and cyber awareness at work. This year’s theme is about making safer choices with ‘smart tech’, which is exactly where most day-to-day risk sits: what people share, click, download, approve, or trust too quickly. Done well, a simple awareness push in February can lead to clearer rules, better habits, and fewer avoidable incidents.
Why Safer Internet Day 2026 matters for UK workplaces
Safer Internet Day 2026 takes place on 10 February 2026. The campaign is often associated with schools and young people, but the theme is just as relevant in the workplace, especially as AI tools become part of everyday tasks.
Many organisations now have AI in the mix somewhere, whether that’s built into productivity tools or used for drafting, summarising, and quick research. That can save time, but it can also introduce risk if staff share sensitive information, accept outputs at face value, or use unapproved tools without realising what happens to the data.
Safer Internet Day gives you a simple, time-boxed way to:
- refresh expectations for safe AI use without making it feel heavy or technical
- connect AI habits to the cyber basics your business already relies on
- remind people that security is a shared responsibility, not ‘just an IT thing’
Turn the theme into simple AI safety rules people will actually follow
If you want this to stick, keep it short and practical. These four principles usually cover most situations.
1) Know the tool
Be clear which AI tools are approved for work use and which are not. Not all tools handle information in the same way, and ‘I didn’t know’ is a common reason mistakes happen.
If your organisation runs on Microsoft 365, it helps to align this with how accounts, permissions and sharing are managed day to day. Unite can support that setup through their Microsoft 365 services.
2) Protect the data
Set a plain-English rule that removes guesswork. For example:
- don’t paste personal data, payment details, or confidential client information into public AI tools
- treat anything you wouldn’t send outside the business as ‘not safe to share’
If you use enterprise tools with tighter controls, spell out what is allowed and what is not, in a way people can apply in the moment.
3) Check before you trust
AI outputs are useful drafts, not guaranteed truth. Encourage staff to sense-check anything customer-facing or decision-critical, such as prices, policies, dates, technical instructions, or compliance-related wording.
A simple habit helps: if it matters, verify it before you send it.
4) Stay within your policies
AI use should sit inside the same expectations you already have around acceptable use, information security, and data handling. The aim is not to ban AI, it’s to put guard rails in place so people can use it safely.
Simple Safer Internet Day activities your team can run
You don’t need a big programme. A few focused actions are usually enough to change behaviour.
A short ‘AI and data’ toolbox talk (20 to 30 minutes)
Cover:
- what Safer Internet Day is and why you’re marking it
- where AI is currently used in your business (including informal use)
- your top three ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ rules for AI and data
- a refresher on phishing and suspicious requests (because most incidents still start with a message that looks normal)
Real-world scenario practice (10 minutes)
Give staff a few realistic situations and ask, ‘What would you do?’ For example:
- someone pastes a client spreadsheet into a public AI chatbot to ‘summarise it quickly’
- a draft customer email written with AI includes outdated pricing
- an email claims to be from a supplier and asks the user to ‘re-verify’ their login details
The goal is to reinforce safe defaults: pause, check, ask, and report.
A quick account and policy health-check
Use the day as a reason to confirm the basics are in place:
- multi-factor authentication where available
- password and access expectations (especially for admin accounts)
- a clear reporting route when something looks suspicious
- a known place to find policies, so people are not guessing
If you want a recognised baseline for core controls, Cyber Essentials is built around the fundamentals that reduce common cyber risks. Unite supports businesses through this via their Cyber Essentials service.
Put ‘guard rails’ around AI use without slowing people down
A good AI policy doesn’t need to be long. It needs to answer the real questions people face at work.
A practical workplace AI policy usually covers:
- where AI is encouraged (drafting, summarising, brainstorming) and where it is not
- what data must never be shared with external tools
- accountability, meaning staff remain responsible for what they submit and send
- transparency, meaning when AI use should be disclosed internally or to clients
- escalation, meaning who to contact if someone suspects misuse or a security issue
Keep it short, repeat it often, and make it easy to follow.
Linking AI safety with wider cyber awareness
AI safety sits alongside cyber security basics, it doesn’t replace them. Good habits around emails, links, access, and data handling still do most of the heavy lifting.
The most useful message for teams is simple: the safer you are with everyday actions, the less likely a small mistake becomes a bigger incident.
Not sure where to start? Book a short conversation with the Unite team about AI safety and cyber security in your business. We can help you review your current setup, prioritise practical changes and support your team so safer choices become the default. You can reach the team via Unite’s contact page.