Why you shouldn’t post your children’s pictures on social media
Author
Carolin AndreeIn the 21st century, posting pictures of your kids on various social media sights sites is the new normal. The average child has a digital footprint before the first tooth shows up. Some children even have a digital footprint before they are even born; that happens when the parents post the ultrasound pictures on Instagram and share them with the whole world. Of course, the birth of a child is a joyous occasion which we all want to share with our friends and family. However, some parents take sharing a bit too far, also known as “sharenting”, and with every use (or overuse) of social media brings with it certain risks.
Dangers of posting pictures of children online
When dealing with social media and going public with the identity of those who actually require close protection, you should consider a multitude of important factors. First of all, social media is omnipresent. You cannot ignore or avoid it. Secondly, content that you have shared can sometimes no longer be deleted.
With enough “likes” and “shares”, a picture of a child can be sent halfway around the world to people, who you do not know at all. This kind of careless handling and publishing of sensitive information and data of a vulnerable person is exceptionally reckless.
Parents who publish sensitive information such as full names, birthdates, birthplaces, together with pictures of their children, make it possible for criminals to steal those identities. The 'New Yorker' reported on a study in which it was stated that it expects two thirds of all the identity fraud of today’s youth, occurring until 2030, to be traced back to this type of “sharenting.”
Online photos of children – Data privacy and legal questions
Babies, by definition, cannot give any informed consent about a copy of a picture. Nevertheless, you should think about the question of data privacy, especially about when the children get older.In some legal systems, such as Germany and France, children own the rights to their own photos. The parents are only recognised as managing caretakers rather than owners.
In the US, the situation is less clear, but there are still legal risks when you share pictures on social networks. In one extreme case, content that was posted on the YouTube channel DaddyOFive was used as proof of abusive parental behaviour and led to the removal of two children by social services into safe custody. The lawyers believed that the parents abused their children, but also noted that the way the videos were shared was itself a form of abuse.
As soon as children or young people are old enough to understand social media, you should start asking for their permission to post their pictures. Until that is possible, you should vigilantly protect the private space of children. The age, however, at which they understand social media varies from child to child. You can help them to learn and understand the concepts of netiquette, i.e. media literacy. Involve your children in the decision-making process when deciding which pictures are allowed to be made public and who is allowed to be in the pictures. This is a good opportunity to bring your children up to speed with how social media works. You help them understand that posting pictures online is associated with security issues long before they have their own TikTok, Snapchat, or Instagram accounts.
Social Media and Social Engineering
The more information cybercriminals have, the greater the chances are that they can successfully deceive someone. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Clubhouse, TikTok and Instagram provide an ample buffet of information that they require for their attacks.
Whoever reveals beyond what is necessary about vulnerable people gives criminals more than enough information with these posts and updates to successfully engage in illegal activity.
How mum bloggers use their children for promotional purposes
We all know the term "mummy blogger" or "mum blogger," and it's nearly impossible for a new parent to do an internet search for anything baby-related without stumbling across a mum blogger's website. In every post – whether on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook etc. – pages are inundated with pictures of children and babies.
The little ones are not only shown in everyday life (often in compromising situations) but are also used as actual billboards. The sponsors expect regular content that shows the children with the products, for which the mummy bloggers are paid. What is obviously classified as child labour is not a criminal offence and is all too often viewed as completely normal because mummy blogging is a widespread and very lucrative business.
In North America alone, there are now over 4 million such blogs that post pictures of their offspring every day and sometimes earn millions. On average, more than 1000 pictures of a child are posted before they even turn 13. It would be a significantly higher number for mum bloggers.
Social Media and Cyberbullying
You should also think about how others might react to the things you share about your child on social media. Regardless of whether the child cares about old photos and stories of themselves on the internet, others can use this information to make fun of, insult, and even bully the child as they get older. What would keep people of the same age, work colleagues or classmates from sharing a photo that the child finds embarrassing within their own networks? What if others notice it is being passed around, and they share it again? It doesn't take much to turn a picture of a family joke into gossip for an entire school.
The potential for bullying is not limited to people you know. To get a feel for the reckless personalities of anonymous people online, just take a look at the comments on children's videos on YouTube. What will your children think and feel when they see strangers talking badly about them on the internet or leaving hateful comments?
Digital Kidnapping
Digital kidnapping is a form of identity theft. This takes place when social media photos of vulnerable people are reconfigured with new names and identities. The unfortunate part is that the child is often passed off as the child of the identity thief. There have been numerous examples of this over the past few years, including an incident in 2015 where a stranger took an 18-month-old boy photo from a mum blogger's Facebook page and posted it on his own Facebook profile and pretended that it was his son.
A child's photos can also be hijacked for baby role play. Baby role players create accounts on social media websites to post stolen photos along with captions that contain false details about the child in the photos. Sometimes the stranger pretends to be the child, answers or makes comments. Baby role play accounts are created by people who appear to want to be a parent or child – or so it is thought. However, this is another example of how easy it is, as parents, to lose control of protecting their child’s identity when information about them is published online and made available to all.
The internet does not forget
It is difficult, if not impossible, to control information as soon as it has been published online. You can't prevent someone from taking a screenshot of a post and posting it outside of your reach. Even the deleted posts that have seemingly disappeared from the social media profile may still live on through internet archive websites and on servers and hard drives. With this in mind, one should consider how the photos and stories can affect the child when they are much older or even adults.
Parents need to think about how potential employers might react later when they locate certain sensitive childhood moments on social media: shortly after waking up, while sleeping, maybe even on the potty. One should wonder how the posts could affect the child if they ever decide to run for public office – and whether you would want to show yourself that way?!
Why you shouldn't show your children on the internet – final thoughts
Most of us use social media on a daily basis without thinking too much about it. We see something, take a picture, press the button and that's it. The post is instantly available to all of our friends.
However, when it comes to vulnerable people, take a little more time to think about what you are doing. Is the child's privacy protected? Who is looking at the pictures? Is this a photo that could be harmful if it turned up in an online search in 20 years? Would you post such a photo of yourself?
Keep in mind that it is ultimately the children's digital footprints. In an increasingly connected world, this is an important responsibility for parents.
Social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc., make it very tempting to share pictures of our little ones with friends, family and several thousand other people. Sure, there are privacy settings, but be aware – these don't completely protect your children's pictures.
Once a picture is posted, you can’t control what the people who see the picture do with it; they may share, retweet, send, save and even print it.