August 17, 2023
USA TODAY: Think twice about that first-day-of-school photo: Tips for keeping kids safe online this school year
As summer beings to wind down and school starts once again, social media platforms are flooded with back-to-school photos of smiling kids in their best outfits posted by proud parents.
Accompanied by captions celebrating the start of 4th grade at So-And-So Elementary or props written on colorful paper sharing a child’s age or class name, these seemingly harmless pictures can be a joy for friends and family to see. They also have the potential to put private information about you or your child at risk.
“We have the best of intentions, but not everybody who sees these pictures and these posts and these videos will have the best of intention, so we've got to really guard against, the bad actors online,” Donna Rice Hughes, President and CEO of Enough Is Enough®, a nonprofit organization that focuses on making the internet safer for children and families, told USA TODAY. “As a general rule, don't share any what we call personally identifiable information.”