Should Your Children Be Posted On-Line?

I’ve seen and heard many stories during my time as a Private Proxy Client Services representative.   I get calls from people asking about our services all the time.  Unfortunately, a lot of these people are seeking our services after something has already happened to compromise their privacy.  Lately, a big issue is the privacy of children.

Many new parents are so excited, that they think nothing of posting every baby picture they take to social networking sites.  They shoot videos of first smiles, first laughs, first steps, first baths and post them on YouTube.  Because they are proud parents, they want the world to see their gorgeous children, so the videos are usually public.

What these parents don’t understand is that by making your pictures and videos public, you are endangering your children.  Baby’s first bath might seem like a cute, innocent picture, but this video could be captured and placed on a child porn site.  This is also true with pictures.  Imagine if one of the pictures you posted of your child in her first bikini was posted to a child porn site.

Child porn sites aren’t the only dangers.  Anyone who can see your pictures on your social networking site can see where you are located.  In other words, if someone was determined enough, he or she can find you and your child.

Facebook has an age limit; you must be 13 years old in order to have a Facebook account.  I know of many children who are 9 or 10 years old with Facebook accounts.  How do they do this?  They complain to their parents that their friends all have accounts, so they should be allowed to have one too.  The parents will then set up the account, using a bogus year of birth so that to Facebook, the child is 13.  The kids don’t even need a parent to do this; they set up their own accounts and lie about their ages.  This is possible because many parents don’t realize how important it is to monitor their children’s Internet activities.

When a young child is left alone with a camera-equipped laptop, there’s no telling what type of pictures they will take and post.  As an example, a self-portrait of an 11 year old child, lying back on her bed with her hair mussed up and her eyes partially closed was posted to her Facebook page.  To me, the pose looked like it was taken right after an intimate moment and is a pedophile’s dream.  Her mother, however, commented on the photo saying how beautiful she looks.

Make sure your children are safe on line.  Download the free Internet Privacy Guide at the top of this page.  Child Internet safety is just one of the subjects covered.  It only takes a few minutes, but is well worth the time if it will help keep you and your family safe while surfing the Net.

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