Lesson 147 · 2 min

Protecting children's photos online

Photos of children posted publicly can be copied, edited with AI or used to find them, so share fewer, share privately, and hide identifying details.

A cute photo can reveal a child's face, full name, school uniform, daily routes and birthday. Together these help strangers build a picture of the child.

AI tools can turn ordinary photos into fake or harmful images. That is a crime in many countries, but it is very hard to undo once pictures are out.

Set your social accounts to friends only, avoid uniforms, name tags and location tags, and post fewer close-up face shots. Ask other parents and the school before sharing group photos.

As children grow, ask them before posting their pictures. It teaches them that their image belongs to them.

Do it now

Check what you share about your child

  1. 1. Look at the last ten photos of your child that you posted.
  2. 2. Check who can see them and whether any show the school, address or full name.
  3. 3. Change the audience to friends only, or remove any that reveal too much.

Quick check

Which post is safest for a family photo of a child?

Which post is safest for a family photo of a child?

More on this

Words from this lesson

Image generation
Creating pictures from a written description, using AI trained on very large collections of images and captions.
Deepfake
A fake video, photo or audio clip made with AI to show a real person saying or doing something they never did.
Data privacy
Keeping personal or confidential information under control, including deciding what you type into AI tools and where it is stored.