Parents Who Share Info About Their Kids Online Are a Cybersecurity Risk. Here’s Why.
It’s adorable to hear about the newborn, the birthdays, the accomplishments. But it is just giving more information to future identity thieves.
3 min
There are few things more heartwarming than seeing parents posting about their children on social media. Their names, their pictures, their birthdays, their accomplishments, their teachers, their pets. What parents wouldn’t want the world to know how wonderful their child is?
In recent years, however, such “sharenting” has gotten some pushback for violating children’s privacy, and depriving them of choices about their online identities. How, some people are asking, will my 21-year-old daughter feel one day about what I’m sharing now?
But what has gotten little attention is how sharenting also should raise concerns about their children’s future online security.
Starts before birth
It all, of course, seems so innocuous and precious, and starts even before birth. Parents post images of their scans, with due dates included, to social-media sites. Both parents are usually tagged. The follow-up is a birth announcement, which normally includes the child’s full name, date of birth, time of birth, weight and hospital. Milestones are next: the child’s first steps, first holiday, first pet, first word, best friend, favourite food.
If these milestones sound familiar, it is because they are routinely used as answers to the security “challenge” questions that we use to get into online accounts when we forget our passwords. One survey on password choice found that 42% of British people use either a pet’s name, a family member’s name or a significant date as their password. You want to hack into somebody’s account 10 years from now? Just look back online and see the name of a first pet or a first-grade teacher. It’s all probably going to be there for the taking.
Barclays Bank warned that by 2030, after another decade of parents gleefully and unknowingly sharenting at current rates, 7.4 million identity-theft cases could occur a year. The Identity Theft Resource Center warns that by combining information from social media, such as name, date of birth and address, along with the troves of hacked personal data available to buy cheaply on the dark web, such as Social Security numbers, a scammer has all the details needed to open up a bank account or take out a loan in a child’s name.
The pandemic has compounded this issue.One study found that many schools encouraged parents to post videos to social media to keep children connected, increasing the volume of personal information about children’s home lives being shared online.
Thousands of photos
By their fifth birthday, the average child will have around 1,500 photos of themselves shared online. This means that by the age of 13, when children are allowed to use social-media sites themselves, there could already be almost 4,000 photos depicting them online. Those figures don’t include children of parent influencers, who build careers around posting information about their children to a worldwide fan base completely unknown to them, with unknown trustworthiness.
An emerging threat to children is the use of AI technology used to create deep fakes: images, videos, GIFs, sounds or voices manipulated to look or sound like someone else. Given the vast volume of children’s images and videos posted online by their parents, malicious creation of deep fakes could be used by cyberbullies or school bullies.
When posting information online, parents don’t normally ask their children for their consent. Yet consider this: The U.K. Safer Internet Centre’s survey on young people’s experiences online found that 46% of them felt anxious and out of control of their information when they discovered posts about themselves online that they hadn’t been aware of. A further 44% felt angry, with only 15% seemingly being indifferent.
Coming explosion
It’s clear that this information is a ticking time bomb, and likely to result in an explosion of embarrassment and angst for our children as they grow up, as well as exposing them to identity theft.
What can we do about it? For one thing, parents should be aware that their shout-outs about their children—however well-meaning—could cause real long-term damage to the people they most love.
In addition, our social-media privacy settings can help control the audience that sees our posts. Ensuring we are comfortable with which social-media platforms we use, how our profiles are set up, how public our posts are, and what information we are giving away can help us make informed choices on how our children’s digital footprints are shaping up.
Understanding the real-world consequences of sharenting allows us all to make better-informed choices on our decision to post or not to post. We all want to give our children the best lives they can possibly live. Let’s not undermine it by constantly telling the world how wonderful they are.
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5 min
You either love it or loathe it but there’s no question that painting your house, whether it’s inside or outside, takes considerable time and effort. So it’s important that once the preparation work is done, you choose the best paint for the task. With so many on the market, it can be challenging sorting through so we’ve prepared the ultimate painting product cheat sheet. It’s guaranteed to be more fun than watching paint dry.
DULUX WEATHERSHIELD
Best for: Exterior walls
Available in 10 paint types, including Low-Sheen, Semi Gloss and Render Refresh, the Weathershield range has been specifically designed for Australian conditions with built-in UV, mould dirt and stain resistance. As the market lead, the Dulux range of colours stretches into the thousands,but the company provides specific advice for popular exterior colour schemes.
TAUBMANS ENDURE
Best for: Interior walls
Created with Nanoguard Advanced Technology, the Taubmans Endure range is ideal for high traffic areas such as hallways and living areas thanks to its ability to withstand wear and tear. According to the manufacturer, it also protects against mould and mildew and is approved by the National Asthma Council Australia’s Sensitive Choice program.
BRITISH PAINTS 4 SEASONS
Best for: Exterior surfaces
As the name would suggest, the point of difference with this paint product is its ability to weather seasonal changes. Owned by the Dulux group, British Paints 4 Seasons is self priming on most surfaces, for a faster, more satisfying result. It comes with a 25-year guarantee against peeling, flaking and blistering as well as providing resistance to mould, fungus and algae.
HAYMES EXPRESSIONS
Best for: Interior walls
Haymes Paints was established in Ballarat in 1935 and the family-run business still offers an Australian owned and made product. Haymes Expressions® Low Sheen has been designed for easy washing – and stain removal – and is ideal for wet areas, thanks to its seven-year mould and mildew protection guarantee. Haymes Paints also releases a yearly colour forecast to provide design professionals and homeowners with inspirational colour palettes.
WATTYL SOLAGARD
Best for: Exterior surfaces
A mainstay of the exterior paint market, Wattyl Solagard is known for its durability and colour fastness over an extended period of time. Suitable for painting over most exterior surfaces, including concrete, masonry, timber and galvanised iron, it is UV and dirt resistant. It is available in a wide range of colours to suit most house styles, including Coastal, Heritage and Modern.
PORTER’S ORIGINAL PAINTS
Best for: Specialty finishes
Now part of the Dulux Group, Porter’s Paints has built its reputation on its wide range of specialty finishes for exterior or interior use such as limewash, chalk paint, French wash and liquid iron. While some products require specific application processes, there are easy-to-follow video tutorials and step-by-step instructions to support customers interested in a unique finish. Aside from an enviable array of carefully crafted colours, Porter’s Paints are water based and low in VOCs.
HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT CONSIDERATIONS
More homeowners are becoming aware of the potential hazards associated with house paint, particularly when it comes to air quality. The main concern is Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, which are released into the indoor environment and have been linked with eye irritations, breathing difficulties, as well as damage to kidneys, the liver and the central nervous system. From a product perspective, VOCs slow down the drying process, creating a wet edge on application so the user has more time to work with it. More paint manufacturers are now offering low or zero VOC paints, but be aware that even those paints may still contain elements like ammonia and formaldehyde. Ventilate the space as much as possible, opening windows and doors as well as using fans and wear masks and gloves to minimise exposure to fumes while working.
TOP PAINTS FOR THE JOB, AND THE PAINTER
Painting a home involves so many decisions, and choosing the right paint for the right job is tricky. Here we look at the top paint brands for the jobs at hand.
Exterior paints need strength to withstand the elements, they do this by adding additional and expensive, top quality resins so fading is less of an issue, and new technology that offers UV protection. Who wants to repaint a house, right? After years of advancement, you can now achieve great results with acrylic exterior paint, which has the primer built in. Taubmans All Weather and Taubmans Sun Proof are great options here.
Exterior features such as fences and front doors are a chance to add extra zing to the design, and very often the best way to produce that effect is with a gloss or enamel paint. While there have been improvements in acrylic gloss products, purists and pros are still reaching for the oil based product – the finish is simply brighter and more reflective, and more to the point will last longer on high traffic spots such as doors. The lesser known Norglass brand offers a magnificent result, and comes in small cans, which is a bonus for feature trim jobs.
Interior walls cop the most passing traffic scuff and grime, especially if you are blessed with kids or pets. The ideal paint here is a washable, acrylic based paint that goes on smoothly, and wipes clean easily. A combination of huge colour range, and great coverage (meaning less coats to put on) is the Dulux Wash and Wear brand. You can actually feel the extra weight on the brush or roller, which is a good thing, but tougher on older hands, or newbies to the roller game.
Getting on top of ceilings is perhaps the most difficult of paint jobs; back breaking and neck stretching, it is a job with little pay off – but is critical to achieve a perfectly finished room. A dead matte finish is ideal, usually in white (but don’t let that stop you), and always acrylic. While you can use a cheaper matte paint, a purpose designed one will go on easier and offer better coverage – it’s designed to be a one stop wonder. British Paints Paint and Prime is reputed to have be a good ceiling paint that goes on thickly, and works particularly well with a long knap roller, reducing spray.
Houses have damp zones, and yes they need extra care because paint that doesn’t deflect the wet will get mould, mildew and then peel. The elasticity of acrylic paint is great here, and Berger Paints have a product, Kitchen and Bathroom Everlast which offers a five-year guarantee against mould and mildew. Best tip here is to, for once, not use a matte ceiling paint, but the soft or low sheen bathroom paint.
A secret of professional painters is the top paint brand Haymes. Haymes is perhaps a lesser known brand to the home decorator but it has been rated by Canstar as the top paint in Australia for the last six years. Haymes has been produced by the one family in Australia for generations, and commands respect from those who spend their lives up a ladder. They don’t need expensive ad campaigns, because those in the know don’t need reminding of this solid and impressive brand. Always consider checking out their products when starting a project.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
