Holiday images: Its like the last six weeks haven’t happened?
So the last two days, in terms of e-safety, have centred around back to school photographs of children. There have been media posts and many of my social media feeds have been acquainted with some parents challenging this as a ‘trend’. Hooray!!! I have written/blogged about this a number of times/years and feel that the e-safety companies, parents and newspapers can take this participle one on now as I have noticed something else that bothers me, which I find just as, if not more sinister.
Now don’t get me wrong I am not following a current path of over sensationalising cyber/internet-based issues, I am merely hoping to highlight an issue for consideration. This issue is not likely to happen to all users of the internet, however, it is a risk. A risk.
Let me elaborate…. Recently there has been a phenomena that occurs much like the yearly one that happens every 25th December. This phenomenon is called “summer holidays”. Last year I wrote a small piece for an internet safety company and I’d like to expand on it after noticing this upon my return from my annual leave. Again. (Facepalm)
Holiday pictures of children. In surprisingly enough…holiday attire. E.g. Swimsuits, hardly any clothes, no clothes and pictures of children posing with very little in the background (think beach pictures here). So what’s the problem? These are just holiday pictures? It’s the holidays Cath?
Indeed these are holiday pictures, however, if I was (which I am) a person who views these pictures for admiration, celebrations and being pleased for you having a wonderful time then that would be/is lovely. If perhaps the person I am referring to here is not like me and has no interest in celebrating your success and life then this would not be lovely? Perhaps this person would like to use your picture for a more sinister reason. For example, trading it, keeping it, doctoring it (changing or adding details that were not originally there) and then trading it etc. This could be on a social media site or perhaps other areas that the public does not necessarily have general everyday access to.
I hope to make myself much more clear so I will explain that predators of children’s images look for, find, download, sometimes change and upload and share these images. These predators look for pictures of children on the internet and where sexual gratification is sought they may look more-so in the direction of children in less clothing such as swimsuits/naked. The less background there is in the image the easier it is to ‘doctor’ the image or to superimpose further images in or out of it.
Your privacy settings matter and so do those of your children’s images and the only surefire way to protect the images of your children would be to stick with the old fashioned printed out photograph album in the cupboard. You only show these images to people who visit your house then and unless someone was to steal the album the pictures remain safe/private (to the degree that anything can be either safe/private). However, I am aware that in 2017 we want to share our pictures with our friends and family who live close and far away. (Or just for narcissistic reasons in some cases). Herein lies the issue.
I’m not saying that your images will be targeted, but they might. I’m not saying that you don’t keep your privacy settings to friends only, because you might. I’m not saying you have sexual predators on your friends lists, but you might. I’m not saying your public profiles are unsafe from sexual predators, but they might be. I’m saying you don’t really know who is looking at the images of your children and I’m basing this fact on the number of sexual abuse cases that appear with the known fact that in most cases the abuser/predator is known to the victims. It is unlikely that ‘strangers’ from around the world will actively seek out your social media profile looking for images of your children in beach/swimwear… but they might. I’m saying that people you already know/are friends with/follow you etc may just be one of those sexual predators. Your images can be seen by them, you know because you set the privacy settings. if you follow the advice of e-safety companies you may have done this just to ensure that only friends can see the images.
Your children cannot protect their images that you share, you can though. Your children cannot protect their privacy of the images you share, you can though. Fast forward in time and imagine for a moment what your children might say to you about the sharing of their images without their consent/privacy/protection surrounding them. Imagine for just a moment how you may feel if this was one of your images of you as a child, in swimwear that had been actively sought by a sexual predator and your parents were aware of the risks and decided to share it anyway?
One of the things I teach is about the moment of pride/excitement/happiness and general overwhelm of feelings which actually takes offline the rational, forward-thinking, reasoning part of the brain. (Neuronerds…this is executive functioning being sabotaged) It’s those moments of not thinking clearly that creates the issue in the first instance. Parents, I get that you are proud, excited and overjoyed at times and want to share this with your friends, after all, we are a social mammal and this is how we connect, by sharing (stories and in the old days (kidding) those holiday snaps that last all evening…). I get it and social media now allows us to do this ‘in the moment’ without taking a moment.
The ‘cure’? ..Breathe, take a little longer with your moment and consider the implications. If you don’t know what they could be…don’t risk it?
Originally published 5 September, 2017