When I was a child, the internet did not exist. My baby photos, school projects, and family vacations were not available for public consumption. And this was a good thing for me. I sometimes did not fit in and was bullied by other girls. My self-esteem was low, and this made it that much worse. In middle school (the most awkward years of my life), I walked home from the bus stop in tears every day.
Raising children of my own got me thinking about what life would be like for them at that age. I wondered if they would be bullied, too. At this moment I realized that for them, it would be very different. While platforms may change, the truth remains: The internet can be an unsafe place. There are many child predators, burglars, and criminals lurking around. So can we truly be safe online? Not really. But we can be smart about the content we post and take precautions to protect our information.
My first experience with cybersecurity
The year was 1997, and AOL was the way my family connected to the internet via a dial-up modem. And there was AOL Instant Messenger. Not unlike Facebook Messenger now, it was a way to communicate with your friends after school without tying up your parents’ telephone landline for hours on end. And there were chat rooms. These groups could have hundreds of people that you did not know all discussing a particular topic. This is where I was told to be very careful online. My mom told me she saw on the news that child predators were in these chat rooms and were trying to meet up with children. I was told to never give anyone my full name, address, or phone number. This made sense. Do not talk to strangers whether in person or online. Got it.
The wave of social media
Now, I was in college and my friends kept telling me about this new website called Facebook. One of my roommates insisted that I just had to sign up. My internal alarm bells were going off. This seemed like a really bad idea. It reminded me of the AOL chat rooms with the child predators. My friend assured me that it was safe because only your “friends” could see your content. I jumped right on that bandwagon.
Social media has been a massive game-changer in how we consume content on the internet. For nearly everyone born since 2007 (the time Facebook allowed photos to be attached to text posts), the story of their life has been shared online. The day they were born. The first time they peed on the potty. What they ate for dinner. The first day of school. And it goes on.
The amount of personal information shared on social media is astounding. I am just as guilty as many of you. I am a self-proclaimed oversharer. While I am concerned about protecting my children and their identity, I am also aware that this is the new normal.
Tips on how to protect you and your children online
Finding that middle ground between sharing and overprotection can be difficult. Here is a quick guideline I follow.
Utilize privacy settings on your social media accounts. You can choose whether or not a post is public for anyone online to see or limit the viewers to people you know. Pay particular attention to these settings when announcing private information. For instance, when your new baby is born. Many of us post photos along with the child’s birthday, first and middle name. You should always limit this content to private settings. Later on, this information could be used to steal your child’s identity.
Be sure to never post your home address online. Even with just the house number appearing in a photo, your home could be located and broken into. Use a photo editor to blackout the address if it shows in any content you share.
Do not use the check-in feature on social media when you are out of town. Even posting your vacation photos is better to do after you return from your trip. Burglars could see this and find your home in a records search, taking all of your valuables in minutes.
Do not post the name of your child’s school online. If someone sees your content and knows the name of your child and the school they attend, they may be able to gain access to your child without your consent. Many schools have procedures in place at pick-up to protect children. However, your child could be approached at the playground or walking home from the bus stop.
Make sure to never post any content of your children naked online. Even if they are in underwear or a diaper. It may seem completely innocent to you. A sweet video of them playing in the bathtub could be seen differently. There are millions of images of children stolen and posted within child predator groups and on the dark web daily. It is a very sad reality. You would never want to find out that an image you posted of your child was distributed as pornography.
Talk to your children about safety when being online. Make sure they know never to click on links or ads before they show you first. Malware is easily sent through these. Tell them to never give out their name, phone number, address or any personal information online.
Monitor the content they access and what they post. Depending on their age, you can use parental controls on your internet browser to prevent them from viewing content that is inappropriate. Checking their social media accounts can alert you to bullying as well.
What we post online can impact us later in life. Content is permanent. Even if you delete a post, an image or video of it is saved to a server somewhere. Everything can be found and recovered if someone is looking hard enough. Our teenagers posting on social media could later be used to determine if they are a qualified job applicant.
In this technological age with no current regulation on the rights of our content, we have to be vigilant when it comes to cybersecurity. Make the best possible choices we can to protect ourselves and our children.
