Research cited in a National Research Institute (NASK) guide on "sharenting," a term used for parents sharing children’s content online, suggests around 40 percent of parents in Poland regularly post photos of their children.
The guide says parents publish an average of 72 photos and 24 videos a year, and that 42 percent share them with a wide audience, often without using privacy settings.
Digital footprint
The guide indicates many children’s digital footprints begin extremely early. It says nearly a quarter of children "appear" online even before birth, through ultrasound images, and that the average age of a child’s "digital birth" is about six months.
Aleksandra Rodzewicz from the Educational Research Institute (IBE), a state research body, told Poland's PAP news agency that broad, top-down bans on parents publishing children’s images are unlikely to work in practice.
She argued that enforcing such rules would raise questions about parental authority and constitutional freedoms, and that the most effective tool is sustained education that helps adults understand how the digital world differs from everyday life.
Rodzewicz warned that once a photo is posted online, it can quickly escape the author’s control through copying and re-sharing.
She added that people often do not realise that social media platforms can gain extensive rights to use and reuse user-submitted content, and that publicly available images may also be used to train artificial intelligence systems.
Experts say the risks go well beyond embarrassment. NASK warns that a significant share of material collected by child sex offenders may come from social media.
Digital kidnapping, troll parenting
Another threat is "digital kidnapping," where someone takes a child’s photo and pretends online that the child is theirs.
Rodzewicz also pointed to how easy it has become to identify a child from seemingly harmless posts. Even without a name attached, family connections, likes and comments can help people piece together personal details, including where a child goes to school or its home address.
She said adults tend to be selective about images they share of themselves, while children are often photographed and posted without the same caution, sometimes in private or intimate situations.
She also cautioned against "troll parenting," where parents post humiliating images of children, such as when they are crying or in messy situations, purely to gain attention online.
Rodzewicz noted that in some countries, including the United States, there have already been court cases involving children’s images posted by parents or institutions.
Looking ahead, she suggested that in Poland, as today’s children grow older, more of them may try to use the "right to be forgotten," a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision that allows individuals to request deletion of personal data in certain circumstances, to seek removal of photos posted by schools or preschools.
Rodzewicz, along with Magdalena Bigaj, head of the Institute for Digital Citizenship Foundation, and lawyer Agata Dawidowska, have prepared expert reports and recommendations for a parliamentary committee dealing with children and youth issues.
Their core message is that documenting childhood does not have to mean public posting.
"Document, but do not make it public," Rodzewicz said, arguing that private archives, hard drives and traditional photo albums can preserve memories without exposing children to long-term digital consequences.
She added that schools and childcare institutions should adopt similar practices, including appointing one person responsible for documentation, using secure work equipment rather than private phones, and sharing materials with parents through protected channels instead of open social media.
'Children pay the price later'
Katarzyna Szymielewicz, CEO of the privacy NGO Panoptykon Foundation, echoed the appeal.
"Let’s be blunt: the internet is not your family album," she said. "Every cute Christmas snap you post of your child is a data point that can be copied, scraped and repurposed by strangers or machines—forever. Platforms make money from that exposure; children pay the price later. If you wouldn’t pin it to a lamp post outside their school, don't upload it. Share it privately, or keep it offline."
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP