‘Sharenting’ can leave your baby exposed to ID theft risk — before they’re even born: study
They’re robbing the cradle — while it’s still empty.
During the nine months it takes to cook their little buns in the oven, most expecting mommies find pleasure in plastering pregnancy announcements, ultrasound pics and baby bump progress photos all over social media.
However, the plumb precious pastime — known as sharenting, a portmanteau of ‘sharing’ and ‘parenting’ — could be leaving their incoming tots vulnerable to digital kidnappers and identity thieves, per recent research.
And it can begin much sooner than you think.
“Even when they post about their pregnancy or anticipating the birth of the child, they give away identifying data,” Valeska Berg, lead researcher of the report, says. “And that creates a digital identity even before the child is born.”
“The creation of a child’s digital identity can start with parents sharing information about their soon-to-be-born or newly born child on social networking sites,” explained data experts from Australia’s Edith Cowan University.
“Digital kidnapping is defined as ‘people who steal a child’s identity and photo on social media and pass the child off as their own,’” the clinicians continued.
“[It’s] one of the risks of creating digital identities for children by sharing images, especially those that include personal information about the child and reveal the child’s face.”
Sharenting is a pitfall most overexcited families fall prey to online. It describes the trend of moms, dads and even grandparents publicizing sensitive information about their kids on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other platforms.
Uploading seemingly innocent posts that include a little one’s name, sonogram shots, birthdate, birth certificate, nude or seminude baby pictures, first day of kindergarten and artwork creates their social digital footprint, according to the study.
With the crumbs of info, virtual ne’er-do-wells — such as child predators, scammers, ID thieves and human traffickers — are granted dangerous access to the unsuspecting babe.
A recent report from the Federal Trade Commission revealed a staggering 22,229 claims of identity theft from kids in the US under age 19.
And Katarina Strode, a 25-year-old mom of two and ex-influencer, told The Post she immediately stopped sharing snapshots of her young brood online — a hobby she’d picked up while her now-toddlers were in utero — in spring 2022.
That was when the blonde learned that sexual deviants were scavenging kids’ photos from social media to use for their perverted delights.
“It literally sent a shiver up my spine,” said Strode, from North Carolina. “It never dawned on me that people out there, who might mean my kids harm.”
But Berg says parents don’t have to cease spotlighting their infants, tweens and teens cold-turkey.
“A lot of the times people think that if they only share with their friends on social platforms like Facebook, that it is quite safe,” she said in a release. “However, we often have contacts on those social networks that are only superficially known.”
Berg went on to warn that merely making a social media page “private” is not enough to truly safeguard tikes.
“Therefore, I would recommend private messaging through Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal and so on,” she encouraged, adding that blurring a child’s face could also be worthwhile. “That is a lot safer than public sharing.”
The specialist, too, urged moms and dads to get their kid’s permission before debuting them on the worldwide web.
“Where possible, children should be involved in the development of their digital identity,” said Berg, noting the current lack of data on the effects being on social media has on small kids.
“Future studies should explore the perspectives of children as key stakeholders in the creation of their digital identity.”
