Are your kids online? Should they be?
Flagrant Disregard | August 4
As a father, photographer, and blogger I’ve often considered the important issue of online privacy for myself and my family. I’m not concerned with any of the crazy kidnap/murder/stalking scenarios that the media likes to play up. Just, in general, I think people should be able to control what personal information about them gets onto the internet. So I don’t “overshare” on my blog. And every picture I post on Flickr is approved by the subject first (Even my kids. I acknowledge they aren’t entirely competent, yet they’ve each vetoed me on more than one occasion). Importantly, I have never posted the real name of anyone in my family.
That last bit is one of the most systematic privacy guards I’ve employed. The idea is that, even if you know them, when you search for my kids’ names you won’t find anything. I don’t use them in tags, I don’t put them in blog posts—and I ask people who photograph my family to do the same. Granted, my name is all over the place and I do talk about my family so it’s not hard to put together—it’s a balancing act.
I don’t do this out of fear (although I do worry for kids entering high school with embarrassing baby photos online cross-referenced with their real names). I just feel that, if my son or daughter want to start building an online identity at some point, I don’t want them to be burdened by years of my baggage. And trust me, if your kids are in search engines now they probably always will be. Mine aren’t old enough to make the decision yet so, effectively, I’ve opted them out.
But I wonder if it makes any difference in the long run? A recent development has got me rethinking my strategy. Namely, face recognition in public search engines. Google image search and a new service called facesaerch.com [sic] both can do a kind of image search on faces. It’s conceivable that in the next few years anyone will be able to view a photo of someone online and then ask the search engine to show you every other picture of that same person. It’s even conceivable that the search would be able to take aging into account and to cross-reference it with other textual information. So if you spot a random photo of someone you recognize it would be one-click easy to find every other embarrassing photo/blog post of that same person regardless of where it is or when it was posted.
The best protection is not posting anything at all. But, in moderation and with care and respect, I still think it’s okay to write about and post photos of your kids online. But what do you think?
Do you write about/post photos of your kids online? Why or why not?
I have two blogs. One for the family (http://crazywilliamsfamily.com) one for me (http://geekthug.com). The family website is for other family members and friends to see what we are up to, so I use my kids real names. My other website is just for me and does not use my kids names or pictures, just because its kind of a secret blog (and it gets more traffic).
We also have a flickr account that has plenty of public photos of our kids with their real names. Sometimes it does creep me out. But what I’m I gonna do? My kids are damn cute and other family members and friends in other states want to see them. Plus, I’m a geek and I love to take pictures.
However, once I got some sicko asking for photos of my children … barefoot. He said it was for some magazine, but I never sent him anything, I just blogged about it and went on with my business.
So far I have just said “my son” did this charming thing or “my daughter” said that adorable nugget, without naming them. I have seen parenting blogs where the child is shown from the knees down, so you can see he’s at the beach or dressed for t-ball, but not what his face looks like. It can actually be done pretty creatively, like a challenge. I haven’t posted my kids’ pictures, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. Dooce.com, for one, takes it all the way the other way, though, and her daughter is featured in face and text. I think in general we are overly careful with our kids these days, it’s part of our culture of fear since 9/11. So hey, if I link to my Flickr sets, do the terrorists win?
I post it all. Real names, birth dates. I’ve done this since before my oldest was born. But at that point I didn’t foresee the problems. She’s 8 now. I’d started the blog, before they were such, as a way to keep in touch with my out of town in-laws so of course I’d use their names. It didn’t occur to me that anyone else would care. Then strangers started emailing me comments. Nothing rude, just… comments. So I made the main page private but kept a public site for other relatives that had been reading. So it was kind of all downhill from there. Seems pointless to go back now and change it all. I could, I guess with a massive find/replace. But it’s too late, no? So the privacy issue definitely concerns me, and I’m not sure what I can do about it now… The girls are going to hate me when they turn 13 anyway, aren’t they? :)
I post about my son a lot. He goes through a lot for a one year old and it’s been a little difficult for me to deal, so this was my way of coping.
I was using is “real life” nickname and one that I gave my SO. But recently, we started another site with other people, and I I knew was going to be popular. So before they started, I revamped my blog, went through EVERY single post, and changed our names to an alias. I’m okay with sharing my name. But everyone else has a different name. This was also encouraged by SO, so I did it out of respect for both my son and him.
I share plenty, probably more than I should. But I am at least a little subtle about it. But never could get comfortable with using code names or such and one of the reasons I started out online was to share photos etc of my kids with far flung relatives and the ease of doing it on a site outweighed any sensitivity to privacy type issues.
I agree with the fact that in the near future what we feel is ‘too much’ is going to be blown away by what will be available whether we want it out there or not.
I blog and I post to flickr. I also write a column in print for a daily newspaper.
This is what I do. My family is what compels me to write. There are times I worry about what they (the kids) will think when they reach maturity and ‘Google’ themselves or me. I hope that they understand that most of what I wrote really was about me even if it featured them. I hope they will come to see it as a gift.
I think about this subject a lot, though. And I usually come to the same conclusion: Most of us aren’t sharing truly sensitive information. We are sharing common experiences that can be difficult. I think life is too short to not do our best to understand ourselves and each other.
I post photos and names, although no last names. It’s not a big deal to me. The overall risk that something will happen is too small to worry about. It’s insignificant. Better to focus on things tha matter, like safety in cars, accidents in the home, drownings, etc.
You know I don’t. I use pseudonyms for everyone, myself included.
Here’s why: I have worked in the Internet security industry for about 7 years. We reguarly publish tips and tactics used by creeps, weirdos and hackers to find out about you and to ultimately steal stuff from you.
My company also owns a software not commonly advertised, that links together databases across the world, so that a client can say, “I need to know everything about Joe X.” and this product will find it. Your name, your bank accounts, even your friends!
So, be paranoid. Be very paranoid!
This is one of those subjects where everyone has made a decision and is probably not going to change their opinion. Because of personal history, I blog with a pseudonym, and always one (nicknames) for everyone else I know and ask if others who know me or who get to know me continue to refer to me as my pseudonym on line. (this whole witness protection thing can get ugly! j/k) Photos on my blog are always the kind where it is difficult to see the subject’s face, or body in a way that could be copied and used.
My niece, however chose to write her mommy blog thinking no one but family would know or would be interested. She wrote for a while and went on a vacation. When she got back to her computer someone had sent her 3-4 anonymous e-mails of her child photoshopped with an explanation of how they “just couldn’t help them self because her daughter was just so adorable!” The photos were not disgusting, rather ‘disturbing’( larger eyes, airbrush effect, cropped and placed in a different background, etc) but headed that direction as implied by the text of the letter. She was so disturbed police were contacted and they moved. She now blogs with pseudonyms and zero photos.
Another blog I read had a similar experience with her two daughters and has since shut down altogether.
For me, it needs to be secure or it needs to be vague.
Also, as an “amen brother!” to Dobe, a blog author I read currently was curious about his readership and went in for a look at all the computer stuff geeks can read. (he’s a computer geek) Turns out a particular government agency and also a few other organizations are reading him on a consistent basis, he feels, due to some of his content.
As Dobe says, people with knowledge use search engines for their own purposes and yes, they can lurk and wait for opportune moments that will benefit their agendas.
Some scary posts there. I only recently put a few photos of my son on my blog. I use their first names only and myself and their mother are Reservoir Dad and Reservoir Mum. After reading some of the posts here I will try to come up with some pseudonyms for the boys.
Thanks for the blog and comments
Reservoir Dad
Pseudonyms all around for us, even for the pets! For a while I had a blog just for family and friends, with my first son’s name and our names. I wanted to share it more but didn’t want our info out there. So, I closed shop on that blog and started the new one.
Another wrinkle for us is that we’re a transracial expat family, pretty conspicuous, so I try to compensate for that by keeping my kids’ unusual names private.
I also post plenty of photos, but none of their faces. Makes for less interesting reading and viewing for family and friends, but I choose privacy.
I just recently decided to take down my blog because I found I was writing often about my son - with him being 16 months old, he’s basically the center of everything I do. I was wondering if other parents were having the same dilemma. I am also not afraid of the stuff you see sensationalized in the media, but concerned that my son should have the right to weigh in on his internet identity and it’s not fair for me to create that for him before he is old enough to approve. I think even though I blog and know it’s public, it’s easy to forget that anyone can read what you write, including the people who make you feel like you should cross the street when you see them coming.
So my question is: if you decide to change your pseudonym policy or even take down your site, doesn’t it live on forever anyway on various internet archives? So unless you were anon and careful from the start, it all lives out there forever anyway…
personal policy: use a pseudonym for myself but it’s consistent across the internet and you could pretty easily find out my real name if you wanted
but pretty much all the stats say your children are more likely to be preyed upon by people they know, so you need to be alert and knowledgeable about that, and not worry about the internet, at least in my opinion…
I tried to not use my daughter’s name in posts at first. But then family members began blogging also and posting pictures of her and naming her. It seemed like a losing battle, so I just use her name now. Plus, she was featured on the Signing Time! website using her first name…
I do post photos of my entire family (my own kids, nieces, nephews, etc) on the web. Including keywords with their names and locations. However, I use a service that allows me to protect all of my content from search engine crawlers that index all this information. So, I’m pretty much free of search engine results even though all of this info is on-line. Yeah… It’s possible that because a person can click through to my photos that an irresponsible search engine bot could find it also, but so far I have been unable to find any of my “protected” photos via google.
I’m brand new to the daddy thing, and only recently doing the blog thing (danced a few times in the past, never had anything to talk about). But from the get-go, the only real name I’ve used is my own, for the same reason: it’s already out there.
I’ve been super vigilant about using nicknames (even making them up as I go) for everyone. Right now, the main topics are for our new daughter. While I’ve shown pictures of her, they’re all masked in one way or another (strategic angles or blockage).
My fears are the pics getting into the wrong hands of the wrong types of people. I’ve seen too much of the dark side of this world.
Man, this is a tough one for my wife and me. I used to have a family blog where I used our real names (last name included), and tons of photos. When I discovered a couple of awful google searches that led to my blog, my wife freaked out a bit. We also noticed that a picture of my twin boys in the bathtub (no nakedness) had been viewed dozens of times, and the other shots only once or twice. Creepy.
When I started my daddy blog, I decided to use fake names for the kids, and my wife and I go by Raging Dad and Raging Mom. It’s a fun theme to have. I’m not too worried that anyone can dig up my real name if they wanted too, but it really stresses my wife out a lot. She would prefer I not put ANY pictures up at all. I just can’t get that worked up about it.
“It takes a village.” Our villages are rapidly moving online.
I blog very transparently about my life and yes I do blog the kids lives. 4 of my 5 children have a blog in addition to my wife’s blog and mine, and, although we monitor them, they are welcome to post whatever they want. They are learning to use the tools that will greatly influence their futures. We all use our real names.
“It takes a village.” I have found that via blogging we have created bonds with people within our community and worldwide that more resemble the neighborliness of bygone times. The children are known by that community, and they are safe.
Dear BlogFathers!
You guys don’t have a contact us page. Could someone email me and let me know if my comment starting with “It takes a village” broke some kind of unpublished comment policy. I’d like to participate in commentary here but don’t want to waste my time if the comments will just be deleted.
Thanks!
Doug
ps. In short, I blog the children with their real names and photos. It won’t hurt them. They each have their own blog and that will only help them in their futures.
Hi all…. wow, lots of scary post.
First, two gay white dads here with two adopted African-American children… we stand out. And I started my blog with our real names (no last names)… and then got freaked out by the lack of control and replaced the name with pseudonyms. My fear comes from being such a different and on the social cutting edge family that I do fear so sicko would try to harm us in real life.
As for pictures, yeah… we have those too… all over the web. The FaceSearch tech. sounds like a terrible thing and should only be in the hands of law inforcement.
Also, remember that this generation of children are giving freely of themselves online (just check any MySpace page)… it is almost like the “new” 60’s love thing all over again. So, maybe this fear thing is overblown… anyways, nice subject to post on.
http://daddypapa.blogspot.com
http://progenyproject.blogspot.com
Hi all…. wow, lots of scary post.
First, two gay white dads here with two adopted African-American children… we stand out. And I started my blog with our real names (no last names)… and then got freaked out by the lack of control and replaced the name with pseudonyms. My fear comes from being such a different and on the social cutting edge family that I do fear so sicko would try to harm us in real life.
As for pictures, yeah… we have those too… all over the web. The FaceSearch tech. sounds like a terrible thing and should only be in the hands of law inforcement.
Also, remember that this generation of children are giving freely of themselves online (just check any MySpace page)… it is almost like the “new” 60’s love thing all over again. So, maybe this fear thing is overblown… anyways, nice subject to post on.
Like Dobe, I work in Internet security, including cybercrime. I use pseudonym for everything except work/career-related item, where I use my real name. (This includes two Facebook accounts.) My wife uses a separate psuedonym.
My daughter uses Webkinz (w/o chat) and non-registration sites only. None of us post personal information on-line in the open.
I have a few blogs and the only one with real names is the password-protected, family-only one. The others use fake names. I’m now wondering how safe the invite-only blogs are. Haven’t had any problems yet, but some of the posts here make me wonder.