The risks of ‘sharenting’ on the lives of minors

The summer period is a time of increased use of social media. There is a tendency to want to share both personal experiences and those of the family unit, despite the risks that this may entail, some of which are simply forgotten in the moment, and so the Spanish Data Protection Agency, (AEPD) has published a guide to help everyone avoid some of the problems.

The term ‘sharenting’ is a combination of the concepts of sharing and parenting and refers to the sharing of images of underage children online by their parents on social networks. This is a practice that has become widespread in recent years and involves risks that must be taken into account before carrying it out.

With the arrival of summer and holidays, sharing experiences through social networks becomes a common practice, but it is important to consider that the information you publish can compromise you. For example, giving information about your location can be a clue that your house is empty, which could lead to burglary, for example.

It should also be noted that our posts can be seen by more people than we initially think, and not just by our followers. To try to avoid this, a good practice is to review the privacy settings of your social networks, restricting who can see your posts.

This way, you can modify settings such as who has access to your posts or whether your geolocation can be known. Remember to do this for all social media platforms you post to.

The risks of posting on social media are heightened when we talk about ‘sharenting’, since the content in which minors appear is more sensitive. For this reason, and despite the fact that it is not advisable to post content on social media in which minors appear, if you do so you must increase your precautions and be more responsible.

Some of the dangers of publishing this type of content:

Fraudulent use of images: Content can be downloaded without authorisation and manipulated to be re-uploaded on the Internet. In addition, it can be used for advertising campaigns without our authorisation.

Geolocation: Location data allows us to know where our children are at all times.

Lack of privacy: When we upload photos of minors, we are doing so without them being able to decide whether they want to have a presence on the Internet or not.

Cyberbullying: Content can encourage cyberbullying, as it can affect your social reputation.

Grooming: Harassment by another adult through social media may occur.

Paedophilia: Content may be used for sexual purposes. Paedophiles may save or share such images for sexual purposes.

If, despite these risks, you have decided that you are going to publish photographs or videos of your children on social networks, follow these steps:

10 tips for responsible sharenting

You have the obligation to protect their image and privacy, not the right to make arbitrary use of them. Minors have rights that must be specially protected.

Your son or daughter does not gain anything from the publication of the images. Although it may not affect him or her negatively, the balance will rarely be positive.

There may be different criteria regarding what and how images of minors are shared by their parents. When parents are not a couple, sharenting can be a cause of conflict.

You may not be aware of how these images are being disseminated. It is not always easy to understand and manage the logic and changes in social media privacy management.

There are other, safer ways to share images. You need to limit who you share information with and choose the right platform.

Often, more information is shared than meets the eye. An innocent image can contain important contextual details and even geolocation.

By sharing the images with others, they may assume that this means they can publish them and that the images are not so private. Without any malicious intent, directly or indirectly, they can expand the reach.

What you post is forever beyond your control. When something appears on a screen, it is susceptible to being captured and reused.

Sharing images of other people without their consent can be a breach of data protection regulations. It is not a good example for anyone, least of all minors.

In extreme cases, the safety of family members may be compromised.