This month, we’re talking a lot about baby safety. As a new mom you want nothing more than to share your new bundle of joy with everyone. Hundreds of photos are taken and before you know it you are posting them to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more so all of your friends and family can join with you in admiring your greatest creation. The question occurs to some – Baby Safety Is It Dangerous To Post Photos Of Your Baby Online? While the opinions are varied, we want to take an honest look at what posting your family pictures online could potentially do.
BABY SAFETY: IS IT DANGEROUS TO POST PHOTOS OF YOUR BABY ONLINE?
What are the legitimate dangers?
- Stolen images being used for other purposes. (Sold as their own, used to create fake social media profiles, used in memes on websites)
- Individuals you don’t wish to see your family or know where you live locating you via these pictures (picture taken in front of homes or in recognizable locations)
- Derogatory comments being made if your child is disabled
- Potential for stalkers to use images to fuel their obsession.
How likely are these things to happen?
Statistically speaking the things mentioned above are rare. While there are instances of theft of images,they are rare. The chances that someone will see your kids pictures and recognize you or begin stalking you are also rare, and easily prevented.
How can I safely share images of my baby online?
- Set your social media privacy settings strictly.
- Know who you have on your friends lists. If you prefer to keep images only to a select few – create special lists on Facebook to share with. This is great way to organize your friends into groups of who you are close to, who is family, and who are work friends or casual acquaintances you wouldn’t want seeing your images.
- Keep images on sharing sites to password protection mode only (sites like Flickr, Photobucket, etc. can all be locked down).
- Keep Instagram private and only add friends you know, trust and are okay with having see images.
- Utilize cloud storage like Dropbox where you can share a folder or link so your family can view images only as you wish.
- Never share nude images online – even cute baby pictures. This could be embarrassing to your child as they get older, and even tastefully done can have you flagged as posting nudity or pornography.
While I personally do not feel you are typically at great risk when posting images of your baby or your family online, I do believe there are methods of baby safety that should be in place. When your child is an infant or toddler they won’t understand when you ask their permission to post a picture online. As your child grows older, ask them first. Even if you are only sharing in private groups, you should respect their privacy and opinion.
Should you choose to post photos of your baby online, make sure you follow the safety tips above. Be cautious in when, where and how you post images for your entire family, not just your child. Enjoy the ease and fun of the world wide web and social media in sharing milestones with your friends and family.
What do you think? Does posting pictures of your child pose a threat to baby safety?
I love to post photos for my family and friends to see on my FB page. I have it set to private. I don’t share a lot of pictures, just a few. I’m happy with that.
This article had some fantastic tips! I know that I have followed most of these suggestions while using facebook and posting pictures of my kids. Its hard because you want to share with loved ones but you never know who might be creeping your facebook page. Definately gonna go and try the rest of these suggestions.
This is a great post. In today’s day and age, you just don’t know who is watching. Thanks for the tips.
My older kids ask to have their picture posted online. With my baby I make sure that the pictures are in good taste. No naked babies here, but sometimes there are diaper pictures, because they are so cute.
I enjoyed your article, have to think twice about posting now
Those are some great tips. I’m always posting pictures of my kids.
You make some good points. My hubby doesn’t want me to post pics anymore for many of the reasons that you mentioned.
Great tips! I try to be very careful about what I post photo-wise!
My kids are teens so back when they were babies we didn’t do a lot of ‘online’. But now that they are older I will put some on but they are particular about which ones!
I think it’s important to respect our familiy’s privacy for their safety. When posting images I keep in mind using security settings on posts to make they aren’t set on public. I like the ideas the others have shared.
I sometimes post photos of my kiddos on my blog, but not very often. Even though I don’t post many photos, I do talk about them a lot. I just don’t use their actual names at all.
Not only is it rare, it is extremely rare. I do agree about the tips about nudity – best to cover up!
We all need to be careful of what we publish and what information we leave around.
Those are some great tips. I like the idea of using a dropbox.
I post pictures of my children online, but do try to make sure that they are not going to be embarrassing or more importantly bring any risk to my children.
I do post photos of my children and use them on my blog. When I do, I always watermark them so that it is visible but doesn’t obscure the photo.
I am careful about what I post. I want to protect my daughter, but I also do not want to hide her away either. I use common sense. Do not post easily identifiable locations. Do not post naked pictures. Do not post pictures that could be too embarrassing later on. Etc. We live in a digital world now, so I would rather teach my daughter about posting safely than try to hide her from reality.
My husband and I have been discussing this recently. He is concerned with posting our family pictures online or on my blog. I’d love to read what your other readers thoughts are on this too.