My daughter is turning 13. She games on her Nintendo 3DS a lot and made friends there. We share a laptop and have Windows profiles for each person (password protected), so usually I would not be able to see what she's been saying to her friends. I know she chats online to friends. I've given her a rundown of internet safety rules so she knows. She has very few friends in school - maybe just the one or two - and I know she wants more friends but this is something that has been like that since she started primary school. For some reason when she's with people in real life, she cannot let lose and talk freely so she's very reserved, shy and quiet, hence she finds it hard to make more friends. Online however she is very normal and chatty.
Tonight she didn't bother to shut down her account and so her windows were all open. I caught sight of a chat window on Google Hangouts and I was nosy I admit, so I went on there to see what she was chatting about and to whom.
Turns out it is some internet friend she made while playing 3DS games. Now I've seen some of the Youtube videos this friend made (she and my daughter like making Youtube videos of them playing their online games) and I have no doubt it is a genuine kid who lives in a neighbouring county. However I was a bit shocked at how much my daughter has shared with her. In the chat log, I see my daughter has, in the past month (that's how long she has known this person), sent the friend photos of me, my husband, and her siblings and herself, plus told her which city we live in. And her friend has tried calling her several times on Google chat and keeps asking her to call her back. Also her friend is the one who kept asking her to post photos of my family and stuff. Really, looking at the chat log, I think that girl is just one really bored nosy girl. I don't think it's a pedo or anything.
But my concern is that I spotted my daughter saying in the chat log, after she's posted all those personal info, that her mum (that's me) "doesn't actually allow her to tell online friends things like where she lives and stuff because of 'internet safety'"... but she was gonna do it anyway. And I'm like... what if she does one day meet some unsavoury character and is still so relaxed about posting personal info despite being fully aware she is blatantly disobeying internet safety rules?
I don't know what to do now. On one hand I am reluctant to confront her about the chat log I saw because I had invaded her privacy by looking at it without asking her permission first. On the other hand I want her to take internet safety seriously. I feel like just running through the rules again with her on the pretext that I notice she has made a few online friends on Nintendo gaming recently and I just want to make sure she is following internet safety rules? I don't think I ought to tell her what horrible things may happen to her if she doesn't follow the rules and accidentally told unsavoury characters about her personal stuff. I mean first of all, I don't want to scare her too much as it may never happy to her, and secondly, she may not think its going to happen to her or she may think I'm just overestimating the dangers, etc. I don't want to ban her from talking to her friends (online or otherwise) either as I know just how much those friends mean to her.
What would you do? I am very disappointed in what she did but on the other hand, I feel like I have failed somewhat for her to have done what she did. Not sure what's the best way to go about it.