Is It Safe To Post Your Child’s Photos Online?

We’ve all heard the horror stories – a mum shares photos of her children online and they get picked and used for offensive Internet memes, or “stolen” and reproduced without permission by anonymous or troll social media accounts.

And yet, we continue posting photos of our cherubic kids online – because we want to share the joy of those precious captured moments with our family, friends, and well-meaning followers. “We shouldn’t let those trolls ruin it for us” is a common refrain.

That is – until it happens to you and you find yourself helpless and frustrated at the lack of options to take down those image thieves.

So how much is too much? And what steps can you take to protect your children and their privacy and photos? Here’s a simple list of tips and guidelines we stick by and have found effective in keeping our online presence healthy and thriving without jeopardising our personal information and privacy.

What Kind of Photos?

No matter how cute that photo of your little bub splashing around in the bath-tub or running around only in a diaper is, the sad truth is that posting it online can expose your child to all kinds of people – including the sinister variety. Protect your child by not posting photos of them unclothed at all – or crop them. As a rule of thumb – if you’re uncomfortable with the photo being circulated, don’t post it.

Customise Your Privacy

Let’s face it, if you have a large following on Facebook and accept friend requests freely, you are potentially exposing your child’s photos to a larger, and less trustworthy audience.

So take an hour and split your friends lists up into different groups based on how close and comfortable you are sharing with each set of friends. It’s that easy!

If you’re on Instagram, you can easily opt to privatise your profile and curate the people who can follow you and have access to your photos.

However, if you’re looking to grow your following and would like to use your account to find other mummies to connect with or you’re more comfortable with sharing your child’s photos, you can choose to privatise your account before you head to bed to prevent strange followers you cannot immediately block.

Watermark Your Photos

If you run a public blog or keep a public Instagram account, an easy way to help curb the unauthorised sharing or spreading of your photos is to introduce a watermark on all your photos.

This ensures that if someone tries to share your photos without permission, the likelihood of you finding out it happened is much higher – and getting Instagram or Facebook to help you take down the offender’s post is also much easier.

Safety First

Besides preventing your child’s photos from being shared without your knowledge, here are four other tips you might want to consider when it comes to social media:

1. Avoid “live” posts from where you are. For example, wait an hour or so after finishing a meal or playing with your child in a specific location before you post any photos. You’d be surprised at how easily unsavoury characters can find you via simple geo-tags you inadvertently upload.
2. Don’t share photos of your child in their school uniforms. If you can’t help it, then you should at least mosaic out the logos on their uniform to rule  out stranger danger. We’ve heard of children being approached outside their schools by complete strangers who recognised or “found” them via just snaps of them in their uniform, so be very careful.
3. Do not share too much information or reply to comments asking about where your child studies or what sessions they are in. Be wary of answering questions that are too specific.
4. When in doubt, block. Instagram, especially, has many bot or anonymous accounts and you can’t be sure of who is lurking behind them. So check the profiles of those who request to follow you – if there is no name, no photo, or anything vaguely suspicious, we would recommend ignoring the request.

So now that you’re done stranger and danger-proofing your social media accounts, post carefully – but freely! We know there’s often no easier way to document your child’s fleeting  and precious childhood than using social media, but just be sure that it’s done sensibly and safely!