A recent U.K. study suggests more than half of parents avoid posting photos of their children online, but previous research found some parents post almost one thousand images by the time a child is five year old.
Publishing a child’s name and birthday raises privacy issues and the possibility of identity theft. Sometimes parents snap photos unwittingly identifying a child’s home address or school.
Photo may have impact later in life
“Many times we post photos online, it may be of our child in the bathtub or an embarrassing photo, that we think is silly when the child is three but when the child is 30 years old and wants to run for politics, all of a sudden we’re in a different situation in that those photos are still on line and could impact that child’s career later in life,” says Amber Mac, a technology expert and author of Outsmarting Your Kids Online.
Listen
Predators, advertisers repost photos
There are also online predators or advertising companies or others who take images from the internet and repost them for their own purposes. Mac says parents can take steps to make sure that doesn’t happen. There are privacy settings on Facebook which can restrict who has access to photos.
She also suggests finding ways to share photos privately by sending them directly to another person or setting up a private Instagram account.
Risk increasing, says author
“Even though the risks are rare they do happen. Whether it’s identity theft or predators online there are those cases and there are more and more all the time,” says Mac. “So I think parents need to educate themselves more about some of these potential dangers.”
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.