There are people that expose every little detail of their daily life on the social networks. Those who share about their kids and family every day are known as sharenting influencers. And there’s a risk associated to that practice. Avoid sharenting if you want to protect the privacy of your children. The reasons to skip this practice are a lot, and you may find interesting tips reading the following article.
Sharenting is one of the recent topics on social networks. It has several consequences for the minors because their entire life can be shared from the moment they are babies until adolescent or adult life. Avoid sharenting to give your children a safe and private space on social networks to share only what they want. Take into account that the photos of your children you share, are uploaded on the Internet and they can be stolen easily.
What is sharenting and why should you avoid it?
Sharing photos and videos of your children on social networks has become very common. Parents want their friends and family to check how much the children have grown. It’s a strategy to make them part of their lives even if they live far away. However, the practice is now more than a way to show affection and it can have negative implications. Most of these risks may pass unnoticed but they are still there. For example, you are creating a digital footprint of your children, an online identify that they may not like in the future.
Children digital footprint starts the moment you share something that belongs to them on the social networks. According to studies, most of the children already have an Internet presence even before birth when they parents share an ultrasound. It’s nice to record the different stages of life, but it’s also necessary to think about what the children would like before sharing any post.
Privacy and security on social networks, two sides of the coin
The idea is to post photos of your children but clearly thinking about the consequences of privacy and security for them. You should take into consideration the following risks:
- Privacy risks: today you post something on social networks and the content remains there forever. If you post about your children life, it’s possible that you expose details that people with bad intentions may use against you. Even if you set the account to be visible only for friends or family, there’s no total control over the use of those images.
- Fraud and vulnerability: if you reveal information like the name, age, school or places that your children frequent, you are exposing personal data. According to certain studies, for 2030 sharenting may be the cause of millions of identity theft cases around the world.
Avoid sharenting, image rights and respect for children privacy
Children have a right for privacy and that includes decisions about what they want and don’t want to share on the Internet. According to data protection laws, the children image right are protect and parents have the responsibility to respect them. Publishing images of your children without their consent may bring you problems in the future, especially if they consider that those moments were intimate or private.
Tips for a more secure sharenting
It’s not that you have to completely eliminate the practice of sharing something on your social networks. The idea is to make it consciously. Follow this tips to avoid problems with sharenting in the future.
- Set your account configuration to private. Limit the people who can access your posts and check the permissions once in a while. These reduces the possibilities of your photos reaching people you don’t want to.
- Avoid identification details. Don’t reveal information about the location of your children. School, clubs, full name and other personal data that may expose them shouldn’t appear. Think about using photos where they can’t be fully seen, for example, from their back or when playing without showing their faces.
- Reflect upon it before publishing. Think if the photo you are sharing is something your children would like to see on the Internet when they grow up. If the answer is no, then don’t do it.
- Make them part of the decision. If they are older enough, give priority to their decisions when sharing something on social networks. This is also a teaching about privacy and they will be able to build their own digital identity.
- Do not use photos in public profiles. In case you use open social network accounts or you are a public figure, avoid your children exposition at all costs. Public profiles in Instagram and Facebook may turn access to photos more easily to unknown people or hackers.
Think about the future of their digital footprint
Sharing family moments is a great feature of the digital era. But when thinking about our children, there’s also a bigger responsibility. The digital footprint you create for them when they are little, may affect them when they grow up. And we never fully understand how this can affect them. Each image, each piece of data, may turn into a permanent reminder of a moment, even if you eliminate it. You should always have in mind the protection of their privacy and digital identity in an environment of love and respect. Before uploading the photo, remember that their stories belong to them.