Parents, it’s almost back to school time for your kids. Protect them on social media!

Parents, it’s almost that time of year again! Back to school time for the kids! For some this may be your child’s first year in school ever. For others, you and your kids may be pros at the perfect back to school picture.

In a previous post we discussed the issues of sharing things about your kids to social media. With first day of school pictures, there’s a wealth of information that someone can gather. Let’s look at some of this information.

Let’s look at this cartoon school as an example of what information someone can gather.

The green arrow that’s pointing to the word “school” is the name of your child’s school. If you are sharing to social media and do not have privacy controls in place, anyone can look at your post. Someone now knows the name of your child’s school, can figure out where it’s located, and scroll through your posts to find out their name.

The next picture, which is shared a lot on social media, is the first day of school chalk board.

Let’s break this image down by following the green numbers:

1. Name of your child.

2. Grade your child is in.

3. Your child’s teacher.

4. Your child’s age. With a little math, and/or looking at your public social media posts, it’s possible to find the birth date.

Why is it so important to protect this information?

Parents, and extended family members, may need to protect the kids in their lives from people who may harm them. So, here are some tips for you to help protect your child’s social media presence.

• Ask for permission before taking and posting pictures of them on social media. If they say no, respect that. The same goes if they ask you to remove something of them you posted to social media that they don’t like. You are their social media curator, editor, and publisher. You can unknowingly post something that may affect them years down the road.
• If you do get permission, restrict who can see the pictures. Also do not identify their names.
• Do not allow other people to post images/videos of your children without getting permission and do not allow tagging of any posts about them.
• Be aware that child identity theft exists, and social media is a good platform for a bad actor to start gathering information. Restrict who can see what you post about your kids.
• Secure your devices and social media.  Do the same for your kid’s if they are old enough.  This means using strong passwords and adjusting security and privacy settings.

If you are a parent that wants to learn how to better protect your child online, please reach out to us. We also offer identity theft protection to protect you and your children. Fill out the form below to contact us.