How Africa
1. You may be stepping on your child’s anonymityand consent
While it may not be something we think about all the time, we’re essentially taking control of our child’s digital identity from the get-go.
2. Digital Footprints
Posting photos of your kids create a digital footprint — a kind of electronic paper trail — that forms their identities in a world they haven’t chosen to enter.
3. Data Collectors
Everything you post has information that is valuable to advertisers and data collectors; posting a photo of a kid identifies you as someone who might be interested in baby products. We make it quite easy for number crunchers to add data willingly…
4. Losing Control of your images
Once you post a photo online, you lose control over it. Someone could easily copy the photo, tag it, save it, or otherwise use it — and you might never know.
5. Digital Kidnapping
There is a growing crime called ‘digital kidnapping’ in which individuals or companies steal children’s images and use their images in advertisements or more sinister things.
6. Targeted Advertising
Data collection online more often than not leads to targeted advertising by social networks or sale of this data to third parties. This is the business model for most, it not all, social networks.
7. You can’t take it back!
Once you’ve posted that picture, that’s it, there’s no way to take it back. It’s always out there, on a server, and even if you tighten up your privacy settings, a picture or video, once shared online, can, with a few indiscreet clicks by family or friends, become public property.Even if you share the image then delete it, there is not telling that someone had not saved it to their computer already!
8. You may be sharing your child’s location without knowing
GPS-enabled phones and location tracking integrated into photos by your camera or smartphone may offer up sensitive information like your child’s school address, your family’s home address, and other places you frequent like church, recreational places or shopping centers malls.
