Despite the enormous concern that currently exists around the use of screens by minors and its negative effects, the truth is that boys and girls begin their relationship with the digital environment long before they even have the capacity to desire it.

According to a study carried out by the computer security firm AVG in different countries, 23% of minors were online before they were born and 81% before they were six months old. In Spain, a survey carried out among parents of children aged 9 to 17 revealed that 89% of families shared content about their children on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok around once a month.

This is what we know as sharenting , a practice that is becoming increasingly widespread today among families who seem to be unaware of the risks involved .

Not to mention influencer parents and the benefits they get from using images of their children on their accounts to attract brands: the study “ Exposure of minors on Instagram: instamothers, presence of brands and legal loophole ” indicates that, of the accounts analyzed, publications where minors appear receive 41% more likes compared to those that do not.

Don’t parents have the right to publish images of their children? Yes and no. Until the age of 14, parents, as legal guardians, have the power to decide how to manage their children’s personal data and, therefore, their image. But it is precisely the parents who are obliged to ensure the safety and well-being of their children. The rights of children must always come before our own.

When we upload a photo or video to the Internet we lose control over it.

Because who can resist sharing a nice family photo from a vacation or a special moment with our friends and loved ones? Something sporadic and natural that shouldn’t become recurrent.

Furthermore, we must be aware that any image posted on the Internet (even on private profiles) can put our children’s safety and privacy (their digital footprint) at risk. Once it is sent, even to a small circle of people, the image escapes our control and could become public, for all purposes, if it is shared or downloaded by our contacts.

According to the Child Pornography Offender Profile report , 72% of convicted dual sex offender cases involved everyday, non-sexualized images of children, i.e. photos from commercial sources, family albums, or legitimate sources. This is especially true for those harmless, family photos at a pool or beach, as you never know where that content might end up.

And to these risks, now we have to add the exponential increase in the use of generative artificial intelligence applications, giving rise to deepfakes and morphing , which consists of altering the image of the minor (it can be any photo in any context) with others of a pornographic nature, giving rise to a new photograph with high sexual content starring, unintentionally, the minor.

But if it’s a very ‘funny’ photo, why are you embarrassed?

This comment is often followed by others like: “But they are children playing in the pool; it is only my baby in the bathtub; it was a very funny fall… how dangerous can that be? There are worse things on social media!”

56% of parents share potentially embarrassing information about their children, 51% provide information that can be used to locate them and 27% post downright inappropriate photos. In Spain, 42% of minors feel embarrassed by content posted by their parents on the internet.

In addition, we also find many profiles of schools, sports centres or associations on social media that, in order to promote their services and activities, publish and share hundreds of images of minors, often very inappropriate (in swimsuits), even though they have the corresponding family authorisations to do so.

Legal repercussions

And what happens when those children grow up, become teenagers and ask us to delete them?

When our children, nephews or grandchildren are old enough to have an opinion on what is published about them on social networks, their wishes must prevail. This is specified by law , for example, in Spain:

“In the event that the right is exercised by an affected party with respect to data that has been provided to the service, by him or by third parties, during his minority, the provider must proceed without delay to its deletion at his simple request.”

And we must know that, even if we use emoticons to cover their faces, if they can be identified in some way, we could be sanctioned by the Spanish Data Protection Agency with fines of up to €3,000, especially if we do not have permission from the parents or they have asked us to delete them (there are fines of €10,000 for this).

Even so, it seems necessary to adopt future mechanisms or measures, beyond those that already exist (in the Civil Code, the Organic Law on the Protection of Children and Adolescents against Violence, LOPIVI, the Law on Digital Services, DSA, or the Organic Law on the Protection of Personal Data and Guarantee of Digital Rights, LOPDGDD), since they are insufficient to guarantee the security and privacy of minors on social networks.

Before publishing photos of minors, let’s think

1. First and foremost, would we want that image to be in the hands of strangers? How could the publication of this content harm the minor in adult life (in terms of getting a job, starting a romantic relationship or in any other aspect of their personal life)?
2. Let us empathize with minors and their sensitivity, especially in their teens: let us always ask before publishing a photograph of them on the Internet or sending it to relatives.
3. We must share this concern with the closest relatives, siblings and parents, so that they respect the wishes of the minors.
4. Let’s configure the privacy settings for social networks and instant messaging channels to ensure that users who are not contacts cannot access the photos, and even if they are, they cannot download them.
5. We should always disable the tagging option on social media so that people cannot tag us or our children (if they have a profile) automatically without our permission.

As the Spanish Data Protection Agency and the PantallasAmigas initiative remind us : there is an obligation to protect the image and privacy of minors, not the right to make arbitrary use of them. It is their digital footprint that is at stake.

Author Bio: Laura Cuesta Cano is Professor of Cybercommunication and New Media. Specialist in training families and teachers for the proper use of technology. Disseminator on digital well-being at Camilo José Cela University