As the new school year looms and thousands of back-to-school photos of children in their uniforms are posted on social media, academics are warning of the dangers of 'sharenting'.
Researchers at the University of Southampton have conducted the first study on the harms of sharenting that demonstrates a link between sharenting and children becoming the victims of cybercrimes and digital harms such as cyberbullying, online harassment, identity theft, identity fraud, privacy breaches, and contact by a stranger.
The team surveyed more than 1,000 UK parents and found that 45 per cent actively 'sharent', and one in six reported that their child had experienced at least one of the above harms.
Sharenting is when parents or carers post photos or videos of their children on social media.
Lead researcher Pamela Ugwudike, Professor of Criminology, said: "Sharenting poses a real and present danger to our children. By proudly sharing photos and information about children on social media, parents are unwittingly putting them at risk of harm, both online such as cyberbullying, and in the real world - not just now, but also years down the line.
"For example, strangers contacting them online may also target them offline. There is financial risk from information shared by parents being used to hack into their children's future bank account. Affected children may also be denied the clean digital footprint required to pass the verification checks increasingly required when applying for official documents such as a passport."
The research has found that current regulations and social media platform safety provisions fail to protect children from digital risk and harm.
The team will be presenting its findings to Parliament later this year, calling for government intervention to tackle the issue.
Through in-depth interviews with 30 parents, the researchers also found that parents and stakeholders such as schools are largely unaware of the potential risks to children that sharenting poses.
Professor Ugwudike said: "Most parents are aware of the obvious risks, but they are not aware that social media features like tagging and resharing can override cybersecurity features such as privacy settings. Even if your profile is set to 'private' and posts only visible to 'friends', if anyone is tagged then their friends can see, copy and reshare the post.
"Parents overestimate the effectiveness of the privacy settings provided by the major platforms and this creates a false sense of security, which is what surprised me the most from our research."
In 2017, an Ofcom survey found that 45 per cent of parents share information about their children online. "We have found almost exactly the same, eight years later," said Professor Ugwudike.
Dr Anita Lavorgna, Assistant Professor in Criminology at the University of Southampton, said: "Sharenting can seem like a useful way to celebrate special occasions and update family members around the world on children's progress, but parents should be mindful of the risks of sharing personal details such as their children's name and location, or sensitive information like their children's health condition."
Raising awareness and using AI
Professor Ugwudike and her fellow researchers are campaigning to raise awareness of the risks of sharenting and calling for intervention at government level.
They have created a video and briefings for policy makers, parents and schools. They have also designed a Sharenting Risk Awareness Checklist .
Professor Ugwudike said: "Although sharenting is done with the best of intentions, the practice itself is exposing children to harm and crime. It's something that requires attention from policymakers and regulators such as the Children's Commissioners for England and Wales, the Information Commissioner's Office, and Ofcom, plus the social media companies."
The research team - which spans experts in criminology, sociology and computer science - is also developing an AI tool for social media content moderators to support them in scanning for risky sharenting content.
Professor Stuart Middleton, a computer scientist at the University of Southampton, said: "We have examples of risky sharenting content, such as posts revealing children's health conditions or other personal and sensitive information including their age and location. We're using these examples to train the AI tool to provide an early warning of risky content."
Professor Ugwudike added: "Our research should serve as a wake-up call to regulators to address the issue. Children are at risk because of sharenting - for example, even children of primary school age can extract images from social media to create deepfakes."
