Texts about protection, 13.02.2024, 12:00 PM
“Sharenting”, a combination of the words “sharing” and “parenting”, is a term that refers to the practice of parents sharing pictures and videos of their children on various social networking platforms.
Although many see it as a harmless way to connect with other parents or other family members, sharenting exposes children to various risks that parents may not be aware of. In addition to risks, such as bullying or abuse by strangers, risks resulting from advances in technology, artificial intelligence and evolving data collection practices include deepfaking and identity theft.
A child’s digital identity is created by the first announcement about him, sometimes even before he is born. More and more often, pregnancy or a picture from an ultrasound examination is published on social networks. From that moment on, day by day, post by post, parents build their children’s comprehensive digital identity. By the time a child is old enough to use the Internet, their digital identity is more comprehensive than their parents’ digital identity and contains a variety of information – from their name and age to what their voice sounds like, what they like to wear and eat, and even their tantrums.
If parents’ social media profiles are public, this wealth of information becomes available to everyone and may be open to abuse. If a parent’s online account is hacked, the child’s information is also revealed.
Bitdefender experts have warned of the potential pitfalls of sharing, urging parents to carefully share, take control and manage their family’s personal data.
Sharing pictures of your children online can lead to harmful consequences, and one of the worst scenarios is unknowingly exposing your children to predators. Digital photos contain a wealth of hidden data, including location, time, interests, and places visited. For example, a seemingly innocuous photo of the first day of school may reveal details such as the child’s school or the name of the street where the family’s home is located. Geotags even allow tracking of the child’s location in real time. Predators can access these images without having to be in the parent’s contacts, especially if their profile is public or if one of their contacts has shared the image publicly or with other “friends.”
Videos and photos posted on social networks can be stolen and used to create fake profiles, share with other unknown people or distribute on dubious networks.
It only takes a photo or voice sample to train an AI to generate clones and then use them to trick and intimidate parents.
If you think identity theft only happens to adults, you’re wrong – a child’s digital identity is even more enticing to cybercriminals because children are “clean” – no records or incidents associated with them.
Even basic details can become a goldmine for cybercriminals. A scammer could use photos to reveal your address or use information from your posts to guess your passwords or answer security questions. A lot of personal information, such as the mother’s maiden name, pet names and school, holiday details, can be collected from a parent’s social media account.
When combined with data obtained through phishing, the dark web, or public services, cybercriminals can easily steal a child’s identity and use it for nefarious purposes. They can access children’s bank accounts, for example, and because few parents or legal guardians regularly monitor their children’s accounts, fraud can go undetected for years.
Digital kidnapping is a type of identity theft that involves stealing pictures of a child and pretending that the child is theirs, usually by posting the stolen pictures on the scammers’ social media accounts.
Information about our likes and dislikes, financial status, age, race, religion, etc. is constantly collected and sold to advertisers. The more information you provide about your child, the easier it will be for advertisers to target them before they are old enough to make informed purchasing decisions.
But there are other dangers. As machine learning develops, the collected data can be used to analyze or predict aspects about a person, for example, performance at work, financial situation, health, personal preferences, interests, trustworthiness, behavior, etc. Organizations can use profiling to make decisions about people and this can later have an impact on various aspects of life, such as, for example, the possibility of getting a loan or getting a job, although at this point it is difficult to predict the consequences of excessive data sharing of today’s children in the future, when they be adults.
It is the right of children to create their own digital identity, Biddefender experts say, citing a 2018 UK Children’s Commissioner’s report predicting that, on average, each child in the UK will have around 70,000 posts about themselves shared online by the time they turn 18. .
Once something is shared online, it stays there forever, even if the original post is deleted. Among the many photos taken together, some may not represent the children in the best light, and they may be ashamed of it one day. Social norms are changing, and what seemed acceptable a decade ago may not be in the future.
Another strong argument against sharing is that children should have the right to determine their digital identity and decide which aspects of their lives go online and which remain private.
To enjoy the positive aspects of social networks and at the same time reduce the risks for your children, Bitdefender experts recommend that you use the following strategies:
1. Choose safe sharing methods: Instead of sharing photos and videos of your child on social media, use secure (encrypted) messaging apps.
2. Limit who can see your posts. Avoid sharing photos of your child with all social media followers. Create groups with your family and close friends and ask them not to share pictures of your children online.
3. Turn off location services. Take care to avoid taking photos in places that could reveal your location, for example, in front of your house or school, and turn off location services on your phone/apps.
4. Ask your child for consent if they are old enough. Before posting any photos or videos of your child online, talk to them and make sure you have their consent. Additionally, talk to the other parent and ask for their opinion.
5. Be selective: If you decide to share pictures of your child, avoid posting certain photos or videos that could compromise your child’s privacy (now or in the future), such as pictures in a bathing suit or during a bath. Consider hiding your child’s face with techniques such as taking photos from behind or adding emojis for protection.
6. Improve the security of your online account. Change the privacy settings of your social media accounts to limit the visibility of your posts. Limit access to your content to only people you know.
Photo: Caleb Woods / Unsplash