Many parents share innocently without thinking about the consequences this practice can have. This Anglicism, which is among many others associated with social networks such as sexting or grooming, comes from the combination of the words “sharing” and “parenting” and refers to the act of sharing photos or other private information of the Children on social networks without their knowledge or consent. And without first thinking about the consequences of this act.
The first immediate consequence is that a so-called digital fingerprint is created for the minor. Today, children are exposed to advertising about their lives even before they are born. Often fathers or mothers upload their pictures to social networks as soon as they appear in the ultrasound. The digital footprint of most adults today began consciously with the advent of social networks. But the digital footprint, i.e. the records that we leave about ourselves and our lives on the Internet and that can be found in search engines, is created by their fathers and mothers for today’s young people and children, especially the Z and Alpha generations without real consciousness. It’s like writing a resume prematurely with all sorts of personal information popping up that can be used for better or for worse.
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Perhaps the worst part of all is that the data shared about minors can reveal so much supposedly private information that a criminal could impersonate these children at some point in their lives. This is where sharenting combines with cybersecurity. According to a study by British bank Barclays, it is estimated that by 2030, 66% of online fraud will be based on the collection of data shared voluntarily and without intent by reckless people. One could say that practicing sharenting unconsciously without thinking about security is a reckless act. Surely you remember the sometimes tedious security questions that many portals ask you, some of them are banking questions, such as the name of your childhood friend, your first pet or your paternal grandmother. They serve to ensure that only you have access to the account, as almost no one else can know this information. Before social networks, this data was practically known only to yourself and those close to you, but now anyone can research how much exists on the Internet about a person, especially if they are young and their digital footprint is extensive. Find out for yourself . And when you add an algorithm or artificial intelligence that does this automatically, it becomes even easier for a criminal to commit the crime on a large scale.
Another risk behind sharenting is grooming. Grooming, again an anglicism derived from the verb to groom, refers to the deception of a malicious adult who poses as a minor in order to establish a relationship of trust with another minor, with the clear aim of committing sexual harassment of his personality. According to the NGO Save The Children’s 2019 report on viral violence, which involved 400 young people, one in five respondents had been victims of this type of harassment and 15% more than once, with 15 years being the most common. Average age at which this occurred. Disclosing the lives of minors on social networks can give rise to problems of this kind, either because parents share photos of their children or because the children do so themselves, even though they are not legally obliged to create a profile on a social network beforehand 14 or 15 years to avoid exactly these risks.
However, many minors register accounts on social networks long before they reach the legal age and without prior training that prepares them emotionally for the stress they face in this environment. If parents have shared their lives on the Internet since birth and the problem is not addressed critically at home, they may fall into the clutches of harassers or be the ones who normalize practices such as sexting. consisting of sharing nude photos or other photos of an erotic or sexual nature.
Even though there are many fathers and mothers on Instagram who share the lives of their children and their own lives, that does not mean that they are all influencers or stars of fatherhood or motherhood. Public exposure of private aspects of a minor’s life can have consequences for their life that extend into adulthood. No matter how funny and innocent it may seem to post a somewhat ridiculous photo of a child or a picture in the bath or on the beach, we should think twice before hitting the share or like button. click. Cybersecurity is not a chimera or science fiction. Every day it affects us all more, so think about it first before spreading data and private information on social networks.
Eva Bailen She is a mother, a telecommunications engineer and a secondary school teacher.
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