Kristi Podcast Ep 7
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Kristi: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the CAPE podcast. CAPE standing for the Child Abuse Prevention and Education podcast. My name is Christy McVie and I am an ex West Australian police officer who spent 10 years with the police where I was trained as a specialist child interviewer and a child abuse detective. This podcast is all about sharing what I learned, saw and knew whilst investigating child sexual abuse in the police force.
It is also about sharing the knowledge that I gained in that time that helped me with my own parenting of my then two year old daughter. My mission is to help share my knowledge and to help you in your role as parents to keep your kids safe along with guest experts in the field of child abuse prevention and education, both in person and online.
Thank you so much for joining in on the fight to prevent child sexual abuse. Your kids will thank you for it.
Hey parents, how you doing? This episode of [00:01:00] the Cate podcast is just going to be little of me having a chat with you about some of the stuff that's been coming up. For me lately. It's been an interesting couple of months, really, and I have so many things and so many people contacting me and I continuously forget to share that with my podcast listeners. I do share some of this information on my socials. Which included Instagram mostly and Tik TOK, but I always forget to share it on here. Mainly because I've had so many amazing guests recently and. The podcast is therefore, you know, to share information and to share you know, ideas and thoughts and parenting tips.
It's also about sharing as much. Detail of what you need to know what's going on for you. For your kids how to keep your kids safe. So I thought I would do a quick episode about. What I've been encountering out and [00:02:00] about what I've been getting emailed about and all of the other things in between.
So let's get started. This week's a question is.
Hi there. My wife and I are looking for some guidance in relation to supporting our two young children from potential adverse consequences from sharing their photos online. We are stuck as to what is appropriate when there is no general rules for whether it's safe to share their photos online or for school and sporting groups to share photos of our kids, to their social media accounts. We want to do the right thing for them, but not be completely unreasonable, either.
Any thoughts or guidance on this? So I've done a full blog post about this, and I just thought I would touch. On some of the key items of what I have shared in that book, blog posts. But. It's really important that we consider the potential implications of sharing our kids images online. We don't own our kids.
I know that it seems crazy that I'm, I say that out loud, but we don't actually own them. You know, we are only their caretakers [00:03:00] and their. Caregivers until they, they get to adulthood. And that's more, a very long time when you consider the average age of a normal humans lifespan. So we are their caregivers, their caretakers. Were there to shepherd them to adulthood.
And in my experience as a police officer, You know, if we don't if we don't help our kids, The best way we can, if we, if we treat them like we own them. If we don't help them get the skills and the tools that they need to be a good adults. Then we're actually doing them a disservice and I saw it time and time again, where. Parents would, you know, protect over, be overly protective, which you know, the. I wouldn't say that that's a bad thing, but they also didn't allow their kids to make mistakes or they were ex exceptionally protective of them. Or they bailed them out of problems all the time.
And it's it's can be a big problem when they become adults because they're [00:04:00] used to being saved or rescued. And it's really important that we don't rescue our kids. Right. And I've gone off topic completely. But in the case of, you know, sharing our, our children's images online and sharing their information and sharing stories about our kids online, it's actually getting to the point where it's, it's quite dangerous to do so. And. With. What I know about artificial intelligence, what I've seen in my experiences with dealing with child sex offenders and the kinds of images that they collect. And the ongoing. , ongoing lack of protection by social media companies. It is really important that we are the ones who step up and protect our kids.
It's it's the least we can do for them. So these questions are what I have posed and some of the thoughts I have post. So. Who are you posting the photos of your children online for. You need to ask yourself the question. Why are you [00:05:00] posting photos of your kids online first? You know, have you got a public or a private account?
If you've got a private account? Then that's are you just posting photos so that your family can see them? Your relatives, your friends can see them. You know, are you using social media as like an online photo book for memories? Cause I know that, you know, that's quite common. I get photos all the time. That pop up from, from path the, from the past.
And you know, it's a beautiful way to remember them. But when we have a private account, It's not okay to just expect that everyone on our friends list, especially for us millennials and gen Xs who collected friends like They were going out of fashion. You know, in the early days of Facebook and Instagram, et cetera. You know, it's not okay to share those photos and videos and that information, if. Your friends and followers, don't pass the dinner table.
Test. Now what I mean by the dinner [00:06:00] table test is that. If you were to invite that person to your home, that you would happily provide them a meal and have them sit at your dinner table with you. So if you've got friends and followers on your Facebook, your Instagram, your whatever. Whatever social media are you using? And they, aren't the type of people that you would sit down and have a meal with then maybe they're not, well, not, maybe they shouldn't be the type of people that you share, intimate, personal images and photos and, and information with. Online.
Private accounts are different to public accounts.
And I'm not saying that you can't share, , information, but I would be very cautious about it. Not only that. You know, Is it. Again, you need to ask you a question, ask the question of yourself, who are you posting? Those photos. Four. Why are you posting them and sit with the reasoning? You know, if you post [00:07:00] photos online of your kids. You don't have any control over what happens to those photos after they leave your phone or your camera? You don't actually own them once they leave your phone or camera and are now on. Social media.
So if Facebook. Instagram Tik TOK or whatever social media you use. , you no longer own that. The rights to those photos. Th that information, those posts. , when you signed up for the app. You actually signed away your rights to that? Anything that you posted online? And it becomes the property of the social media company. Yes.
It's your profile? Yes. It's your information? Yes, you can delete photos. But the social media company has that stored away in there. In their databases in their big computers, in their warehouses, and it's there on their, on their computers forever or for as long as they, they deem it necessary. [00:08:00] And. For those of you who are wondering what the hell do they do with our information? In most cases it's sold to social media.
Sorry. Not social media to marketing and advertising. In most cases, Our information and our details are sold for so that they can target and re target ads to us. And they create profiles about us. , but in some cases, even our private messages to each other through messenger or through other means other social media apps get sold.
So for instance, Netflix just bought. All of our. Private messages from Facebook Mehta. So we think that when we are privately messaging each other and via Metters messenger app, that it's just between the two of us.
And I teach kids this in our, my conversations with kids at schools. Is that, you know, private messages are just between the two or a few. , you [00:09:00] know, We don't go sharing that information, but we now know, and we've now since found out only recently this year. That Netflix purchased those messages for whatever reason.
And I have no idea why. If you've got a private account and you haven't gone through your account and checked who you have as friends recently. Then maybe it's time to go and have a look and see if they all pass the dinner table.
Test. And you know, we don't own our kids. We don't own photos of them. We don't own the rights to them. You know, there are children's photos. Yes. You know, there are kids. And we want to memorize. And commemorate and celebrate. The moments we have with them. But once upon a time, we just put those books in a photo book.
Right. And we looked at them when people came over. So we need to be mindful that when we're posting images and photos and stuff, where we're thinking before we do it, and that's what I want to encourage. The other thing is, is the second [00:10:00] question I would ask is, do you have concerns or fees in regards to someone not knowing. Or not known to you having a copy of your child's image.
So it, if you've got a public account, a public business account or a public account, and you're posting images, And photos and videos of your children. Does it bother you that someone might repost it or save it? Or do something misuse it. Because unfortunately there's, there's people out there. Child sex offenders being one of them who collect images of children. As it was said in the podcast episode with Jess Smith, from click safe intelligence. That you know, these sex offenders have openly said, it's, it's not illegal to be a creep.
So collecting videos and photos of kids, random kids, fully dressed is not considered it's creepy. But it's not illegal. And that is what some of these. People. [00:11:00] Will you do and use your images for your kids images for if they're attracted to a certain age and they liked the look of your child. They will save that image and they will include it into their. Photo album of kids. And use it for their own perverse reasons. So. The other thing is, is that we have seen recently And I, I haven't got the, I haven't listened to the podcast episode, but there is a podcast. Of a mum who posted, and she's an influencer on social media and she posted a photo of her young son who was only about three. And someone contacted her and said, is this your son?
And there was an ad for her son. On social media. Advertising him for adoption. So people will reuse and misuse your children's images in order to sell things, scam people. And do whatever they want to do with them. Because the minute you post them, especially publicly, they're no [00:12:00] longer yours and you don't have any control over it.
You lose all control over that image. So really you need to think about those things I constantly hear parents say, well, you know, I can't control what, what crazy people do.
If you have a young child. No, you can't control what crazy people do, but you can control. Whether you give them access to your child or not, whether you allow someone to misuse your child's digital image. You do have control over that and. It's not okay. It's not good. To stick your head in the sand and just think that, you know, it's not my fault.
I don't care. I don't know. That's being just basically a dickhead because I'm sorry to be so blunt. It's being stupid. And it's being ignorant. Willfully ignorant is the term. I like to say. When we sit there and go, well, it's not my fault. That's people are like that. And yeah. I mean. I think most people [00:13:00] want to protect their kids.
Most people, if you're listening to this podcast, you are. You know, have the same opinion as me that it's our job to protect our kids and we should be protecting our kids. So I hope that you know, you're thinking twice before posting. If you want to post on a public account and you have a. You know, you have an account that talks about parenting or, or it's some sort of account, Think about how you can do. Talk and post about your family life in artistic ways.
There's some beautiful images of children from the side profile where you can actually see their face and their eyes. You can't make out there. Their actual full features. You know, from behind watching over something that you're doing, , there's some beautiful photos and, and beautiful ways to do it. Without putting your kids at risk and, jeopardizing their futures.
, and before I move on you know, it's become very easy for people with [00:14:00] perverse. Opinions of children, people like child sex offenders, who are attracted to young children. To use your children's image. And feed it into a, an artificial intelligence. Platform or program, it's very easy for them to put your child's face onto a child's image. Onto a video of a child being sexually abused, the adult food. Additional intelligence today is so. Good. That it will look like your child is being sexually abused, even though they haven't been. And we have heard from law enforcement and I have heard it from the horse's mouth that this is a reality of today, even. People who are attracted to your children. I can now take photos directly from your profiles or PR or profiles where your children are featured. And use it to create their own child exploitation material, their own. Sexual abuse material where another child is being abused, but it looks like your child. So that is [00:15:00] really scary.
I think that's another consideration we need to be mindful of.
Quickly interrupting this episode to let you know that Christie has a whole library full of resources to support you. If this podcast hits home for you and you want to learn more about cyber safety, abuse awareness and prevention, and how you can protect your children, head to the link in the show notes where you can access free downloads, informative guides, and courses relating to these topics.
You can also order Christie's book, Operation KidSafe, a detective's guide to child abuse prevention. If you want to join the fight against child sexual abuse, you can support Chrissy to reach a wider audience by leaving a review on this podcast or sharing it with your community.
The third question I pose to you is, are you concerned about your child's details being shared online through schools or sporting groups? Does the school community group share children's names or identity details? When posting photos are the images, videos in a private [00:16:00] group or parents, caregivers. Group or public. So there's different.
There's a difference if it's a private group versus public. And do you have the option to opt out of these photos being shared online? I have mixed feelings. I get the reality that schools and community groups need to share information about what they're doing. Two. You know, encourage people to use their service or to come to their sporting club or to. Be a part of their school. But I don't feel comfortable with the fact that if someone is able to identify my daughter from a, an image, then they'll know exactly where she goes and play sports or. Goes to school or. Or any of those things.
So for me personally, as a police officer and when I was, when I was a place of, so I opted out my daughter all the time. And if I was part of a, an association or a group, I always ask consent or permission from the family before I posted anything, [00:17:00] can I, I would highly recommend if you're. A person in a That is in charge of social media, that you are making sure that you have consent before posting always. But in the instance of you know, if I was taking an image or a photo for social media, for us, a sports social media, and I've been the social media manager for. Horsing clubs and netball clubs, et cetera. I actually used to do it. So that. Most of the image was blurred. I don't know how I you know, our phones are so capable now and I would take it with the sun in the way.
So it was more like a, an artistic image where you couldn't actually see faces or I would take it so that most of the image was blurred. And generally that was all that was necessary. You know, those action shots where the perfect. Thing to put on social media. But again that's not always the case.
And so I would ensure that you never. Publish or [00:18:00] post. You know, details about the children in the photo, their names or details. It makes it very easy for people who have nefarious thoughts and reasons to maybe stop that child or stilt that family. I would be very mindful of, you know, maybe just including more adults in your, in your content. If it's a private caregivers group you know, having some rules around. Not allowed to screenshot any photos of your children, having indivi you. Having individual photos of children so that the parent can only have that, you know, the child that there. That is theirs in the photo. Words not wording today. You know, it's a bit different when you're 18 and you can choose, but when your kids are little, they don't get to have a choice and they have very little choice in all of these matters.
So. Some conscious decisions need to be made. In regards to this stuff. So I'm probably completely confused. You. But here's seven things that are [00:19:00] actually posted in the blog that I use. Only post photos of your children to private social media accounts. With friends and family who passed the dinner table. Go through your social media accounts, have a coal get rid of the people who aren't on there. If you need to post photos of your video at. You know, if you've got a big following and you don't know how to code them all, and you need to keep in contact with those people, create another, create a little Facebook group, or probably not Facebook. But create a little social social media group or private WhatsApp group, or a group where there's end to end encryption for your family, that they, you can share photos with them. You know, if you don't have, if you're not comfortable with social media, having exclusive rights to your photos and stuff, again, consider having a private group in a end to end encryption. Messaging service like WhatsApp. Or signal or one of those end to end encryption. Platforms. Have conversations with your families and [00:20:00] friends about your expectations and reasons why you don't want them sharing photos of your kids?
I know sometimes parents struggle with their older parents, older siblings, older. Generation. You know, Sharing. Or resharing or oversharing pictures of children. It's not our right. They're not, it's not their right to share those photos. I get that there's a lot of parent pride or grandparent pride or, or family pride. But again, When our kids can't give consent. Then it's, we should be assuming that it's not, it's not a given.
And then when they can give consent, we should be asking them for consent. And that's, that's actually my 0.7. So I'll go over that again in a minute. Consider if you've got a public account, put posting artistic photos. This one, really tasteful ways to do this. And you know, if you go, if you do have a public account and you share. Why you're no [00:21:00] longer sharing photos of your kids, then, then maybe that will help your audience get used to that changing content. Don't don't overshare, your children's lives, especially their stories. It's really important that we remember. That these are people who grow up and. Just because they're your kids.
We don't have the right to share everything that they've done. I sh I overshare some of my, my daughter's stuff, and I have consent from her to do that. I've, you know, I've written a book about it and I had her consent when I wrote that book as well. At first and, and Be brutally honest here at first.
She didn't want me to put some of that stuff in there. And you know, over the two years it took me to write, she actually. When I revisited it before I before I did the final edit and published, she read it and went back and said, yes, it's okay to share. So. Again, Consent [00:22:00] is consent is really important and be mindful, you know, would you be okay if this story that you're sharing? The story that you're sharing would you be okay? If, when you were a child, They're having a mum share that, you know, once upon a time, our parents just shared it between neighbors and friends.
Now it's getting shit shared worldwide through videos and tick talks and. So it'd be really mindful that you could be doing. You could be creating trauma for your kid. You could be creating a, an opportunity for bullying further down the line. And, and a lot of other things. Number six is, do not tag or share your location on social media. It's really important that you know, that all of our photos that we take, unless you go into location settings and turn off your location settings. All of your photos are geotagged geotagged is basically where the The longer treat and latitude of where you are. At the point that you take that image. Is being [00:23:00] tagged onto the photo in the metadata, behind the photo.
So, you know, you can't see it, but it's there. And it's very easy. To reverse search the photos location, and find out where you have taken that. So if you don't turn off location settings, Your child's images. Online. We'll be able to go basically give the someone who's interested in them or taking those photos will have the exact latitude and longitude of where they are.
And by tagging them in social media, tagging your kids in them, tagging you know, their locations in them. It's going to give. A person who might just be scrolling through Instagram reels or Facebook reels or. You know, just randomly that your child's photo or image it might pop up on there. On their screen. It's going to give them an idea of where they are and it's going to [00:24:00] give them a lot of information about your young person.
So be real, get rid of it, turn it off. Be mindful of not tagging your kids and sharing your kid's locations, online, tagging schools in them. You know, sharing where they go to school or sharing the logo where they go to school. We don't want creepers or people who are attracted to children, knowing where your children are. And lastly ask, always ask for consent. If your child is too young to ask for consent, consider consent, not given for now. You know, one of the things that I have done in the last few years as I have. Stopped sharing my daughter's images in public. Posts and have locked down my Facebook.
I've I've, you know, I don't show her. At all where I can. But if I ask her, , if for instance, I share something to a private account, You know, I always say, Hey, is it okay if I post this online on my private social media account? , would you like me to tag you in the post if I'm, taking a photo [00:25:00] with someone I'm like, Hey, is it okay if we have a photo together? Do you mind if I post it onto my Facebook Tik, TOK, whatever. Would you like me to tag in the post? I'm only intending to share it privately with my friends. That is how we model consent to them. How we model consent to our kids, how we stop them from thinking that it's a free-for-all I've had parents replay a report to me that their kids are like, are you putting that on Instagram? Are you putting that photo on Instagram and like thinking, you know, they're going to be famous online and , there's a misconception and like an unrealistic expectation. Because our kids don't quite get on social media.
You know, I know a lot of parents and laugh about it now, but even my own daughter thought she was going to be a YouTuber. At one stage and a lot of our kids, , they grew up watching YouTube and other people being successful on YouTube. And then they think, oh, it must be easy and that's not reality.
And that's not real life. And social media is very good at [00:26:00] that. Making us think that real life is not. Real life. So yeah, have some realistic expectations and consent and talk about consent and model consent. Yeah. So that was a lot. And that took longer than I thought it was gonna take. , Just. Have a, have a sit down as a family and think about what is safe and unsafe and why we are, why we do what we do on social media. You know, there was a one stage in my life before before I became this, , child safety expert and educator bef before I left the police. Where. , I shared everything and I didn't know as much as I know now. And I now regret that. And my wish for you is that you won't regret these decisions later on and you won't have. To go through your social media and make, Cole things and, and get rid of all of the [00:27:00] photos.
You know, I still take photos when I'm out and about, and with my family, I just keep them in my camera, camera roll and save them onto my computer for the future. I don't need to post every moment of my life online. I post a lot online, but I still don't post a lot to my social media and of my family life, because. My family, you. It's up to them, whether they post and it's up to them, whether they want to share that part of themselves, it's not my choice.
And I always ask them. And I'm very mindful that there's a lot of creepers out there. A lot of people out there that, you know, make comments and, and criticize and say things about people without thinking without thought. And so it's really important that we make conscious decisions and choices. With the purpose of protecting our kids. Futures.
And we don't know what the future holds for them down the road with social media, with AI, with CGI, with , everything that's [00:28:00] happening, we don't know what's the future holds. So how about we be a bit more. Careful. So that's what I wanted to share with you for this episode. We do have. Lots more questions like that. Coming up.
And I might make this into a series I do get asked a lot of questions every week and I answer them personally and privately now. And again, I'll write a post or a blog. But I forget to share. And I think that You know, whilst you're driving wherever you're driving or you're doing whatever you're doing. You might actually get some value out of what I've shared as well. Again, if you've got questions, you can always contact me. Via my email, the link will be in the show notes. If you've got any questions that you want to be answered privately and not shared, you're more than welcome to say, please don't share. . All right guys, have a good day.
Thank you for listening to this podcast episode. Education empowers children and empowers parents and education prevents abuse. [00:29:00] That is why I'm here and that is why you are here. So thank you. If you want any further information or support, follow me on social media, either under Christy McVie or KAU social media accounts.
I'll put the links in the show notes. You can also purchase a copy of my book Operation Kids Safe via the [email protected]. Also, on my website is a free ebook titled 10 Tips to Keep Your Kids Safe from Abuse. and self paced courses for parents to help you in your journey of child abuse prevention.
Please see the show notes for any extra information, links and help should you be looking for extra support. Thank you once again for giving a shit about preventing child sexual abuse. See you next time.
