One third of kids have image online from birth
We probably all know the joy a new parent feels, one photo after another, the stories that only mean something to mom and dad. But a new report from Internet security company AVG shows that unabashed pride may be leading parents to overlook privacy concerns when it comes to sharing their child online.
One third of children have had images posted online from birth and 81 percent of children have some kind of ‘digital footprint’ by the time they are two, on average, according to the report. What’s more, seven percent of babies have had an email address created for them by their parents, and five percent have a social profile. Welcome to the wired world, little one.
The study, released in a blog posting today by AVG CEO JR Smith, discovered that parents are building their child’s online presence even before they are born, and aren’t overly concerned with the effects that kind of exposure may have.
Almost a quarter, or 23 percent, of parents upload images of their first prenatal scan. One a scale of one to five, with five being the most concerned, the mothers surveyed were only moderately concerned, 3.5 on average, about the amount of online information available on their children in future years.
“It’s shocking to think that a 30 year old has an online footprint stretching back 10 -15 years at most, while the vast majority of children today will have online presence by the time they are two years old – a presence that will continue to build throughout their whole lives,” Smith wrote in his blog post.
AVG’s research surveyed more than 2,000 mothers across the globe, from New Zealand and the United States to Canada, Australia, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Not surprisingly, American babies are the most wired, with 92 percent having an online presence by the time they are two. Toddlers to our north, in Canada, and Down Under, in Australia and New Zealand, followed closely behind the United States. Japan was by far the furthest behind, with only 43 percent of their toddlers having an online presence.
If my image had gone on line before I’d been born I’d have been aborted….thank (the deity of your choice) there was no internet back in ’57!!!