- People's social-media feeds are being flooded with first-day-of-school photos of little kids.
- Police and parenting gurus have said that predators may target the children in the pictures.
Kirsty Ketley, a parenting specialist, was initially charmed by the milestone back-to-school photo that a mom posted on Facebook of her 5-year-old kid on Tuesday.
But taking a closer look, she considered advising the friend to delete the celebratory picture in case it compromised her kindergartener's safety.
"He was standing right outside the school gates, which are recognizable in the local area, and wearing the school insignia on his shirt," Ketley told Insider. "It was very obvious where he was."
She added: "Unfortunately, it made me think about the darker side of the internet."
Ketley, a mother of two who has worked as a nanny for 25 years, said the seemingly innocuous photo might have put the boy in harm's way. She said child predators "fish for information" on social-media sites such as Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
Similarly, police have urged parents to be cautious about posting first-day-of-school photos in case they attract kidnappers, groomers, or scammers. One police department in Canada recently drew attention to photos that showed children holding a banner or board displaying their name, teacher, school, and grade.
Parents should remove identifiable details from their kids' back-to-school shots
In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Gavin Moore of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said: "Some of the things that we just want to remind parents of when it comes to posting these photos is to remember that everything that you post on here could potentially be seen by anybody."
Ketley agreed.
"They can easily end up with data about your kid's identity and daily routine," the expert in the UK said.
She said that she'd seen scores of first-day-back photos of smiling students outside their front doors with the house number on display.
"If strangers know where they live and where they go to school, it could be dangerous, especially if they walk themselves to school," Ketley said.
She recommends that if parents decide to post these types of photos, they obscure school mascots and insignia on uniforms and backpacks and keep street names and house numbers out of shot.
"Some people are well meaning but aren't very savvy online, so you should ask family and friends to get your permission before sharing the pictures with others," she said.
Ketley's concerns were echoed by Marianne Trent, a clinical psychologist who has previously assessed sex offenders in Britain. She told Insider that her job had made her "more risk-aware." She said that she never posted photos of her kids on their first day of school — or any other day of the year, for that matter.
"Professionals who have worked with certain populations have had their blinkers taken off," Trent said. "Once a picture is on the internet, whatever your privacy settings, it can be screenshotted and used outside of your control by people without the same good intentions."
Lenore Skenazy, the president of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence and resilience, told Insider that while she could "understand that nobody wants their kids to be in danger," the fear of pedophiles targeting children they spot on the internet vastly outweighed the reality.
Skenazy tells people not to live their life as if they were in an episode of 'Law & Order: SVU'
"Stranger abduction in the US is, thank God, vanishingly small," Skenazy said. "The vast majority of kids who are missing are taken by divorced parents in a custodial dispute — not by strangers."
She added: "Almost every crime is a crime of opportunity. Don't live your life as if you're in an episode of 'Law & Order: SVU' where some nefarious guy in a basement is trying to sleuth the location of your kid's home and school for six hours every day."
The activist said a police officer who issued a public statement to CT Insider warning against posting school photos online even said: "Truthfully, we have not seen predators specifically for this."
Skenazy added: "There is just some compulsion we have to warn parents about everything, even terrible, scary things that are not happening. But in our mind's eye, we worry they could."
She went on to reassure anybody who might now regret having posted first-day photos on Facebook.
"Showing a picture of your kid in front of a school or on your doorstep on the way to school does not surprise anybody," she said. "Guess what? Children go to school — you're not giving anything away."