Hyderabad: As children are growing up in a connected world, they have their profiles built from the day they were born, to the first day of school as parents tend to upload lot of information. Tablet and phones are their windows to the world and they are the first generation whose entire life will become a searchable digital profile.
As everything is public the digital profile of the person gives away every detail of their life which can act against them. Information once uploaded cannot be deleted completely. This problem has been under discussion by cyber security experts for sometime. This is because of parents sharing too much things online about their children. Parents are not social media natives but are digital immigrants.
On instagram a mother shared picture of kid on fancy dress competition. People whom she doesn’t know started asking her how they dressed the kid, which could have gone viral and be a threat to the kid.
“Parents earlier used to share things with very few people but now it has gone to a wider audience. There is tendency to share more, what happens is lot of kids is being put up online which may not have very good consequences online later. We do not give that a thought. Children might be checking photograph and posts later in life. Down the line, children could question as friends might start teasing or being bullied. Best thing to do is Stop think and share,” said Ms Anindita Mishra of McAfee Cybermum.
Ministry of home affairs directed parents to be cautions about their children’s presence on social media. They said, “This will help parents track their activities and identify fake profile if circulated under his/her name. Parents monitoring the activity will help in having positive and supportive relationship with their children.”
