Children’s Online Safety

Recently, there have been new threats to parents and children over the internet known as “cyber kidnapping”, a direct threat to online safety.  It occurs when someone takes an image of someone else’s child on a social media website and posts it as if the child is their own.

There was a petition on change.org asking Instagram to remove baby and child role play accounts. This was what the petition said:

“Parents are having pictures they post stolen from their accounts and online. The pictures are being posted by other accounts for role playing purposes. Some of the role play is harmless, but some of it includes violence and sex acts with the child. Often the offending account will not remove a picture when asked to by the parents.”

According to Yahoo! Parenting, Over 1,000 people signed the petition last year to boost online safety.

The hijacking of photos has encouraged parents to take privacy measures on social media sites in concern for their online safety. A new app called MyKidsLink allows parents to specifically select who can see their photos. It disables any photo or location sharing to ensure your children’s privacy.

Currently it is not illegal to use someone else’s photo so it is important to make sure all of your privacy settings are up-to-date.