Parents who share pictures of their children online have been warned that these images could expose them to serious risks and long-term problems, such as identity theft and fraud.
Other risks include extortion or exploitation, allowing cyber criminals to create bank accounts and claim benefits in their name.
A new research of 2,000 parents with children under 16 in the UK, conducted by Perspectus Global and commissioned by Proton, showed that parents upload an average of 63 photos to social media every month.
The majority of these photos – 59pc – include family photos, with one in five parents – 21pc – uploading such pictures multiple times a week, while two in five – 38pc – several times a month.
Professor Carsten Maple from the University of Warwick in England and the Alan Turing Institute warned that parents are “unwittingly opening their children up to possible exploitation by criminals who want to use their data for their own purposes”.
“It takes just 20 images for sophisticated AI tools to create a realistic profile of someone, or even a 30-second video,” he said.
“But it’s not just images that can be used, social media posts also reveal sensitive information such as location data and key life moments, that can effectively be used to create an online profile for children long before they’re old enough to consent to it.
“Oversharing by parents can lead to numerous problems for the child in the future, including digital records that can be extremely difficult and painful to remove, leading to mental anguish, negative reputations and harm to others,” he added.
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Professor Maple also warned that “it’s not just criminal gangs who can use the data”, as Big Tech companies also use images posted on their platforms for their own agendas.
It comes as only a few months ago, Instagram changed its user agreement to allow it to use people’s images to train its AI.
The professor added that many cloud storage services, such as Google Drive and Photos, use personal information in ways that many parents are unaware of.
More than half – 56pc – of respondents said their family photos are uploaded to cloud storage, with an estimated 185 photos of their children on their phone and cloud.
When asked what information they think tech companies can access, almost half – 48pc – did not know that data from pictures stored on a cloud can be accessed and used by the companies that hold them.
Parents have been advised to think about what they are sharing; ensure their personal moments are held using secure storage; read the small print and set their privacy and security settings; be aware of phishing scams; and be aware of free public wi-fi.
They have also been asked to set clear ground rules with their children; use parental controls, filters in search engines, antivirus software; and model healthy online habits.
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