Do you think your offspring are just the most beautiful kids on the planet? Do you love posting photos of these beautiful children on your Facebook or Instagram accounts, for all of your friends to see?
Well, it turns out there are many parents doing just that, a lot, with new research in the UK revealing parents post 973 photos of their children on social media – on average – each year.
However, a fifth of these parents admit in the research to never having checked their privacy settings on Facebook.
This means anyone can view and steal these images, which can be dangerous when falling into the wrong hands.
The UK’s Home Office attempted to ban all convicted paedophiles from using social media recently, but the legislation proposed was rejected due to concerns around Human Rights breaches.
However, sex offenders in the US are banned from using social networking sites.
Russell Haworth, CEO of Nominet who commissioned the research for the company’s online safety campaign, Know The Net said parents need to be aware of their privacy settings and be aware of how public their posts can be.
The research also revealed almost 40 per cent of the 2000 parents interviewed in the study thought they solely owned the images posted to Facebook, which is not the case.
“We all love to share those precious moments in our children’s lives with friends and family and sites like Facebook have made it easier than ever,” says Haworth.
“While the web helps relatives to keep in touch and participate in our everyday lives, it also has the potential to lead to accidental oversharing.
“It’s important to ensure that the correct privacy settings are in place to safeguard our personal information and content. Parents are creating a large digital footprint for their child from a young age, and the right settings are important if you want to stay in control.”
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