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Tuesday 2 September 2014

Sharing First Day of School Photos @CBCCommunity? NO WAY!

Kawartha Lakes Parents - Taking First Day of School Photos? Read These Tips! 

Kawartha Lakes Parents are you taking back to school photos of your children? Want to share your first day of school photos with us?  Here's why we do NOT want to see your children in photos online.
CBC Community posted a request to have parents share back to school photos of their children with them online. Will you share your precious pics? Here are a few reasons police advise against posting any photos of your children online. We agree!

Kawartha Lakes Mums Offers Back to School Photo Warning

Websites around the world urge:
Take a photo of your child or children on the first day of school and share it with us.
 We say:
Take a photo of your child or children on the first day of school and treasure it. 
What???
While we would love to see pics of your children on the first day of school, your children's safety is much more important than gaining extra readers through the possible exploitation of your children. Do you know how others use your child's photo when you post it online?

Back To School Photos - How Others Use Your Child

Alert: Back to School Photos Do Not Share!
In "10 Things Never to Post Online", Internet Security Expert Andy O'Donnell cautions that posting pics even just to friends can be problematic. What happens when your friend loses their phone or forgets to sign out of a public computer? Andy writes:
Assume that everything is public and don't post anything that you wouldn't want the world having access to.
Of course we are proud of our children, and want the world to see them - or do we? Do you know how others are using your child and how your child's picture can limit their future? Number 3 on O'Donnell's list of things never to post online? Tagged photos of your children. 

Back to School Photos - Creating Bullying Targets

Puberty is hard enough on kids without parents painting a virtual bullseye on their child's back. On Be Web Aware, it is noted that even tagging of innocent photos can lead to cyberbullying. Websites devoted to cyberbullying, are created around the most innocent of pictures. such as a recent Ontario site which posted pictures of named high school girls encouraging people to vote on whether they would have sex with them by posting "Bang" or Nope".

Back to School Photos - Datamining

Amy Webb, a writer at Slate, cautions parents not to post any information about their children online. Why? In Amy's article, "We Post Nothing About Our Daughter Online", Amy writes
"It’s the only way to defend her against facial recognition, Facebook profiling, and corporate data mining."
Facebook - one of the most popular sites for parents to upload family pics is more than willing to share your family photos with the world. Did you know Facebook can suggest your "friend" tag you in a picture by scanning and comparing your friend’s pictures with info they’ve put together from your profile pictures and the other photos in which you’ve been tagged? Webb explains, that this means with each photo upload, parents help Facebook merge their child's digital and real worlds. Facebook algorithms analyze the people around your child, references made to them in posts, and over time determine your child's most likely inner circle. Facebook is only one site. Facial recognition technology is used throughout the web. This datamining is used in many different ways including selling you products, selling products to your children, and yes there are those who sell your children's photos.

Back to School Photos  - Limiting Your Child's Future

Do you recall how several journalists were blocked from attending a  Conservative Party Rally based on photos in their Facebook Profiles? This is just one example of how your child's photos could be used to limit their future potential income. Did you know college admissions counsellors scan a myriad of sites before making their final decisions? Even more insidious are the myriad of apps and websites that use facial recognition to display total biographical information about a person. Yes, Google Glass has spoken out against having an official app, but an unofficial app developed by hackers exists.

Back to School Photos - Do You Know Where Your Child is Advertised?

Kids photos are big business. One blogger who posted pictures of her children online found traffic zoomed enormously from countries where child pornography is the norm. Parents of babies are finding their children's photos advertised for use in sexual role play games on Instagram. The parents of a deceased teen found their daughter's photo being used in an online ad inviting men to meet Canadian women for dating,marriage and relationships. Is your child's photo being used somewhere? Two sources you may wish to use to check your photos are Google Images Search, and Tin Eye.

Back To School Photos - Giving Your Child to Predators

While many realize the risk of GPS tagged photos, many underestimate how predators use innocent photo cues in targeting our children. You do not need to geotag a photo for a predator to discover your address. Not in our backyard? Oh yes, right here in Kawartha Lakes. In 2010 a news report noted a girl in Kawartha Lakes may have been a victim of a Durham child pornography ring. A Twitter account called @CanadianFessions is tweeting nastiness about kids at school in the Lindsay and Peterborough area.
OPP officer Carrie Lanning created an excellent presentation of the Internet - Good Bad and The Dangerous. Part of her presentation, includes showing local students and parents how many clues an innocent photo holds, and how strangers can use that information to lure your child. Here is part of her presentation.

Back To School Photos - How Can You Safely Share Pics with Friends?

The safest way to share photos of your children with family and friends may be to process the photos ourselves and share them in person. Remember One Hour Photo?
Is there a safe alternative?
What have you found?
Remember, however, you choose share your children's photos online,  once you share photos and videos of your child with someone else, you have little control over what that person does with the photos.

What do think about sharing children's photos online??
Drop us a comment, or connect with us in one of these ways. We would love to hear from you!:
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Back To School Photo Sharing Related Links

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1 comment:

  1. Unknown9:19 am, September 02, 2014

    What do you think about sharing photos of children online?
    Having more information, what advice would you give parents about sharing photos online?

    ReplyDelete

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