You are a bad parent...

[tinymango]

Parents who upload photographs of their children to Facebook without first ensuring the account is private and secure are not good parents.

Someone with average skills could geotag a photo of your child. Guess what school they go to. Get your name off Facebook along with your email and mobile number. Trace relatives and addresses and easily go in and take your child out of school or nursery with ease whilst they pretend to be someone else.

If you have photographs you want to share use an encrypted whatsapp group or via a private account.

Uploading photos of your child to share with relatives is not a good excuse. Or even as a way to archive photos. You are putting your child at risk.

Please do not be clueless.

Yep, to everyone asking, it happened last year. The thing with social media is you can get so much more than their names, you can get the names of their family and friends, where they live what they do... when I was in school (many years ago) a silver van went around the bus stops saying the school bus had broken down and could the children please get in... luckily no one did. It was in the news though. But if someone pulled up in a car and told me my parents had asked them to pick me up and knew their names and loads about them... I have to say at that age I would probably have believed them

My childrens’ nursery had a password for each child, just in case anyone different needed to collect them.

I don’t think anyone would be manhandling my nearly/over 6 foot children into a car now.

@anothernetter I am glad! Sometimes it's the little things we can do to add that extra layer of protection

@pengggwn Maybe saying a bad parent is a step too far but, it grates me when parents (who could take the extra step) don't. It takes a couple of minutes to do. It's not a great length.

Fair enough if you aren't sure how to protect your account but, for your kids add that extra element of protection.

@mustbemad17 No we don't have to stay indoors but, we could look both ways before crossing.
No we don't have to stay off the internet but, we could add privacy settings to keep unwelcome eyes away.

But tinymango you can be hit whilst on the path. What precaution is there for that?

There are risks in everything you do. Every day. Putting photos of your kids on FB isn't in itself going to cause someone to kidnap them. It's irrational to call someone a bad parent because of it.

I prefer 'tricky people' instead of stranger danger.
It's not necessarily the strangers who are the risk. Although being involved in a car accident is also a lot more likely.

pen I know what you mean, everyone has their own parenting style and is entitled to it of course. I just wanted to share the story that, for me, instigated the decision to not personally want to upload anything to the Internet.

I was very vulnerable and gullible as a child and I think that makes me extra nervous as a parent... I believed that no one was out to hurt me and was very trusting as a result.

I don't put pics of my DC on SM because I don't believe I should hand over images of my child to be owned by a corporation (read the T&Cs...).

And I think children are entitled to privacy as much as possible tbh. Especially while they're still working out who they are. Photos of kids used to sit in albums or frames in private homes. There's something awful about making them consumable so broadly. And in such volumes! We didn't used to document our children nearly as much.

The child-snatching risk barely exists.

The potential for a child to wonder why on earth her parent had to use her image to get internet validation a few thousand times before she turns 5? Not for me.

I take about a photo a week of my DC (which I think is quite a lot but is nothing compared to some). I share maybe 3-5 photos a year with family via email or post, mostly their school portraits or a pic of an award, special trip etc. When my DC are older they can decide for themselves how much of their lives they'd like to splash on SM.

I do think there's a lesson in here. Uploading photos of your children when they are too young to give consent. Most of us never grew up in an age when our childhood was documented to such a long lasting extent. I won't upload a picture of my son to social media. Because he has no awareness of it.

But somebody could spend a day watching you & your child & glean that exact same information? We all say our child's name whilst with them in the street. We all have to pick our kids up from school & head home, usually with them in their uniform

Real predators are much more opportunistic than this. They're also incredibly rare. In the country I live in, there have been zero child murders by strangers in the last decade, but more than 60 by people known to the child, more often than not a parent or step-parent. There have been a tiny handful of non-murder child abductions by strangers, all of them opportunistic rather than the result of social media stalking.

You'd be better invested in making sure your child has strong strategies for avoiding opportunistic predators than freaking out about whether someone might be tracing your child through a photo on Instagram.

Oh, and send them to a school that is not so stupid as to hand off a child to a stranger who hasn't been explicitly approved by the parents.

Bullshit. Most predators are very well known to the child.

What about cover/profile pics? They're public even if my account is private. Should I not have my DC on those?

I agree about school uniform pics, can just cover the logo to be safe.

Child kidnap by a stranger is extremely rare. It's more likely to be someone they know.

I couldn't really imagine a password working TBH. We have drummed into DS that he's allowed to go off with people AS LONG AS he comes and checks with us/teacher/whoever is responsible trusted adult in charge first. That means that the adult in question has a chance to work out the situation before he runs off in excitement but because we normally say yes he has no reason to override it.

We live abroad so sharing pictures online is an important way to connect with family and I love seeing my friends' kids grow on SM when we can't see them regularly. Some of my accounts are locked down and others not... I don't really worry about it and TBH I think people being judgemental about others' SM habits are obviously rather bored.

Sorry, that was to OP.

This is rubbish. Children don't get kidnapped by strangers. It's so rare you'd be ridiculous to curtail your life to the extent that you think a picture on social media would increase your risk

Bertie that's same here, lot of my family are abroad. Sharing pics is a good way to keep them involved. Mine is locked down, ironically not because of strangers but because of my ex. Not always the strangers you gotta watch...

As for "you are a bad parent"... you are a bad person attacking others like that. Not everybody lives your life and shares your values.

Bad parent..
There are many bad parents in this world but not having the right security settings is not one of them.

People raise there children differently.
Lots of decisions we make for out kids ..Some chose not to put then online/ some high security settings/ some don't know or don't bother...Far more reason to be concerned in life IMO

Yes exactly the same! Mine is locked down for the benefit (ha) of my ex.

If you let your kids go outside your a shit parent because of the numbers of kids hurt/killed in/by cars.

Oh hang on, there are so many accidents that happen in the home we should all live outside.

What an absolute load of crap. We take risks of far greater magnitude without giving it a thought. I don’t think any of us are shit parents for doing so.