French, Italian DPAs Warn Against 'Sharenting'
Parents shouldn't post photos and videos of children on social media ("sharenting"), French DPA CNIL and Italian watchdog Garante said this week.
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Sharing such content "is not a harmless act and carries many risks," CNIL said in a statement Friday. It raises questions about parental responsibility and has consequences for kids' private lives, it said.
The Italian watchdog has had its eye on sharenting for some time because of the risks it entails to kids' digital identities, personality formation and relationships with parents, it warned Wednesday. It noted its concerns about the practice in its 2024 annual report (see 2507150028).
CNIL strongly advised against sharenting, especially when a parent or grandparent's profile is public. If they still wish to share, the DPA said, parents should take steps to limit the risks.
Those risks include the use of a child's image for harmful purposes, it said. Some parents publish nude photos of their kids, which could then be hijacked by internet predators and shared on child porn networks. For example, AI deepfakes could turn photos of minors published on social networks into nude pictures.
That can fuel school bullying, cyber-bullying, and more pedo-criminal practices, CNIL said. It noted that 50% of children's photos and videos shared on pedo-criminal forums were initially published by their parents.
Posting kids' images can also reveal other information about them, such as the location and time the image was taken, their interests or places they frequent, the watchdog said. Moreover, sharenting raises questions about whether children will later be able to develop their own image and identity, or whether their online reputation will be damaged.
CNIL urged parents who decide to share images to do so via secure, private instant messaging, email or multimedia messaging.
Parents should ask their kids, and the parents of other children in an image, for consent before publication, CNIL said. Other recommendations include avoiding sharing certain photos and videos, hiding the child's face, and not publishing anything that involves a minor's privacy, such as photos taken in a bathing suit or in the bath.
The DPA provided advice on how to set privacy settings to limit the visibility of posts on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X, smartphones and computers.
Kids' rights to privacy and to their images are enforceable by law, and children should also be able to exercise their own personal data rights on social media networks directly, the DPA said.
Garante offered similar advice and added that adults should avoid creating social accounts dedicated to their kids, and read and understand the privacy policies of social networks where they upload photos, videos and other content.