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ISSUES: Privacy
Chapter 3: The Internet of Things
Sharing pictures of your children online
Most parents love sharing photos of their children with friends and family. But
remember – pictures you share online could be out there for ever. Learn how to
protect your child whilst staying social.
Are you a ‘sharent’?
For many children online life begins
before birth, when their excited
parents-to-be post ultrasound images
on social media. According to a recent
poll, the average parent will share their
child’s image online nearly 1,000 times
before their fifth birthday (The Parent
Zone, 2015). For parent bloggers the
total is likely to be double that, or
more.
The Internet can provide fantastic
tools for sharing special moments from
your child’s early years with family and
friends. And online parenting forums,
networks and blogs often provide
valuable support and reassurance
through parenting’s ups and downs.
But before you share, you should give
thought to exactly who can see photos
and comments featuring your child,
and how this online footprint might
affect your child in years to come.
What should you consider?
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Who’s looking? When did you last
check your privacy settings? On
most social networks the default
is that any other service user can
access your pictures, which may
also appear in Internet search
results. Remember that anyone
who can see a photo can also
download or screenshot it, and
could go on to share it.
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What else are you sharing? You
might be sharingmore thanwhat’s
in the post. As default, many
cameras, phones and apps tag
posts and photos with ‘meta-data’
which can include location details
and other identifying information.
This is potentially risky for any
child, but poses particular risks
for vulnerable children such as
those who have been fostered
or adopted and could be sought
online by members of their birth
family.
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Ownership. Under the terms
and conditions of most social
networks, when you share a photo
you license the network to use and
reproduce your image, and grant
it the right to license it for use
by third parties. It could be used
for commercial purposes, a point
deliberately highlighted by the
Danish company Koppie Koppie,
which sold mugs featuring freely
downloaded pictures of young
children. Another online activity
which has distressed parents
and carers is the ‘Baby Role Play’
game played by some Instagram
users, who repost photographs of
other people’s children and create
fictional identities based on them.
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Their digital tattoo. Every publicly
accessible image or comment
featuring your child contributes
to a public image which will
follow them into the future. That
apocalyptic nappy incident might
make for a hilarious tweet now, but
if it comes to light when they’re
older, how could it affect the way
they feel about themselves, or you,
or how others see them? Could
their online childhood become an
issue if they are seeking a job, or
a relationship, or even election to
public office?
Your child’s right to privacy
Psychologist
Aric
Sigman
has
expressed concerned about the
impact on children of the eroding
boundaries between private and
public online: “Part of the way a child
forms their identity involves having
private information about themselves
that remains private.”
Parent bloggers
If you’ve set up a blog to share your
parenting experiences with a wider
audience, you’ve probably already
given plenty of thought to issues
like your child’s privacy, managing
their digital footprint, ownership and
copyright, and commercialism.
Strategies adopted by some successful
bloggers include: anonymising their
own and their child’s identities;
involving their child in the material
you create and only posting material
they are happy with; and carefully
monitoring
their
child’s
online
presence, for example by checking
their name in search aggregator
services or setting up a Google Alert
for their name.
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The above information is reprinted
with
kind
permission
from
ThinkUKnow. Please visit www.
thinkuknow.co.uk
for
further
information.
© Crown copyright 2017
