German police ask parents to stop posting photos of their kids online.
Police in Germany are imploring parents to think twice before uploading photos of their children on social media, or at least be more familiar with their social media account’s privacy settings.
Kids these days have access to things that we older generations could have only dreamed about. The Internet at their fingertips, video gaming consoles with exceptionally realistic graphics, state of the art educational gadgets, and for the lucky ones, even mobile (cell) phones.
But with all this comes a unique concern. And that concern comes in the form of digital photos.
You see, all the photos of us oldies as babies and kids are probably holed up in a box someplace in the attic or cupboard, with the exception of a handful that made their way into photo frames scattered around the home or into leather-bound albums that are also probably hidden out of sight.
However for the younger generation, the same is probably not true. Cameras that work with film are rarely in use. It’s all about digital now. And those digital photos don’t end up in cardboard boxes. More often than not they’re shared on social media, eternally accessible with only a few clicks of the mouse button. A digital storyline from birth to the present day.
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A parent’s old photos can be chuckled at momentarily by those in the room and then soon placed back in storage. The modern day child has their photos on the Internet, forever reachable by anyone that the privacy settings will allow. The Parent Zone reports that the average parent uploads 973 photos of their child before they reach 5 years.
Now this can be a problem. For one, it’s likely to be a source of embarrassment for the future. Kids who were 1 or 2 years old when Facebook first really took off in 2007 will be 10 or 11 years old now, approaching that awkward age where potential sources of embarrassment are certainly not welcome. Do they really want all their parents friends and whoever else gawking at photos of them with copious amounts of birthday cake smudged across their faces whenever they please? Or worse, naked in the bath or at the beach? Of course this problem isn’t going to get better when in a few years we will have a whole generation of teenagers with their baby and kid photos online.
Secondly, and most importantly, it is worth noting that a study showed that 17% of parents on Facebook have never even looked at their privacy settings, and really have no idea how wide the audience the photos of their children are reaching. It may not be just their parent’s friends looking at their photos that the child has to worry about. It could be anyone with an Internet connection, and children, just like anyone else, have a right to privacy – a right that seems to be being taken away from them through over-sharing, privacy-unaware parents.
If photos fall into the wrong hands, they can be used for nefarious purposes. They can be obtained by paedophiles, and the photos can be manipulated with special software like Photoshop.
Police in Hagen, Germany, have caught on to the problem, and are imploring parents to simply not post photos of their children on the Internet, especially photos where they are nude, such as photos of them in the bath or at the beach.
And if you do choose to upload photos, make sure you know what the privacy settings are and who can see the photos. Of course, such photos should strictly be friends only – and that’s friends you know and trust! Read our post on locking down your Facebook account here.
The campaign by German police was posted onto Facebook, and has been shared over 200,000 times, so it’s obviously something plenty of people are worried about and want to get out there! Their post reads [translated]…
Maybe you find the photos sweet today, but your child will find them endlessly embarrassing in a couple of years. Or your child will even be bullied. Even worse: a pedophile could use such photos for their purposes, publishing them elsewhere.
Do you think it’s fair to post photos of your children online? Do you think parents look to the future and think about how their kids would react to their photos being posted on the Internet? Let us know below.
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