Selfies for kids – A guide for parents

Selfies for kids – A guide for parents

Are you – and especially your children – aware of the risks that may come with sharing selfies?



Social media sites are brimming with instant self-portraits, and children and teens are especially adept at taking and sharing images of themselves online. But it can be just as safely assumed that tweens and teens, and not only them, are far less aware of the risks that profuse and thoughtless sharing of selfies and group selfies can entail.


Here’s what you need to know, and teach your kids, before they hold their smartphone at arm’s length (or enlist the help of a selfie stick) and share a photo with the online world. In fact, remember that even sending a picture privately may result in unintended consequences, as once it’s shared, you have no control over what happens to it.

Tech-savvy cybercriminals can glean enough information from a photo, and your child or their pals needn’t even make any revealing comments after the image goes public.


For one thing, if the phone has geolocation enabled, your child may be giving away his or her whereabouts, since the current location is saved and shared along with the photo. Combined with other seemingly innocuous details from the image or the child’s social media profile, this can be misused by thieves, sexual predators and other ill-intentioned individuals.


Also, even if geolocation is disabled, small details in the background, such as street names or landmarks, may reveal sensitive information about your child’s – and your entire family’s – location or other sensitive things such as precious belongings. This can put all of you in physical danger in the real world.


There are also hazards, such as selfies guide parents