One in two photos used on paedophile websites comes from social networks

Parents in Luxembourg are being reminded of the risks of sharing photos of their children online, as summer holidays come to an end and students prepare to go back to school.

The desire to immortalise holiday snaps or the first day at school may seem like a harmless gesture, but it can pose a number of dangers.

According to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one out of every two photos used on paedophile websites comes from social networks.

But why are parents posting more and more photos of their children online? “It’s like everything else with social networks: it’s the likes, the social recognition and the positive comments,” said Isabelle Kieffer, a psychologist and psychotherapist from Mamer.

However, many parents are unaware of the danger and share as if their circle of contacts were limited. “For many young parents, it’s also a way of activating their memories, of having a platform for archiving, so that there’s an online family narrative. Everything is on one page, it’s visually very beautiful, it’s a bit of a change from old photo albums”, said the psychologist.

This phenomenon is called ‘sharenting’, a portmanteau of the English terms share and parenting.

The situation is particularly worrying because the publication of children’s photos on social networks is fraught with danger. “Once a photo is published, it can be copied, shared or misused, without anyone having any control over it,” said Eolia Verstichel-Boulanger, vice-president of Innocence in Danger Luxembourg, a worldwide movement for the protection of children against all forms of violence, particularly sexual violence.

In addition, the child has not given consent and cannot give it with full awareness of the issues given their age, which raises legal and ethical questions. These images can resurface years later and harm the child’s reputation, academic future, or professional future when they are adults,” added Verstichel-Boulanger.

Images can be sold between predators

And the main danger comes from paedophile networks. “Child sex offenders actively seek out images of children on social media, even harmless ones (beach, bathing, disguised, clothed or not). The photos can be used in child pornography montages, even more so since the development of AI,” said Verstichel-Boulanger.

It’s also important to check for visible background elements in photos, such as the school or place of residence, which could make them easier to locate and therefore put the child in danger. “Images can be sold between predators, and even if they are reported and deleted, once they are saved on computers, they can return indefinitely,” she added.

Faced with these risks, how do you protect your child? “The safest thing to do is not to publish anything. At the very least, blur the face, limit visibility and avoid any personal details that could reveal information about the child’s private life. No nudity, no embarrassing moments, no hashtags that make it easy for strangers to search,” advised Verstichel-Boulanger.

Hiding a child’s face with an emoji: a good or bad idea?

“It’s a subject that concerns us a great deal”, said Jeff Kaufmann, project manager at Bee Secure.

Heart emojis, kisses, koalas, chicks… On social media, many parents cover their children’s faces with emojis. But this trick could actually be a waste of time. “It’s a recommendation we often see in awareness-raising efforts to put emojis on faces. But now with the tools we have in artificial intelligence, the emoji can easily be removed or replaced with an image of a child, to create new content with AI,” said Kaufmann.

In France, the minister delegate for AI and the digital economy, Clara Chappaz, recently pointed out that “paedophile networks are fuelled by our digital carelessness”. And Luxembourg has not been spared. “We are seeing an increase in the number of reports of this content being hosted in Luxembourg, which proves that the problem is real here”, warned Bee Secure.

To combat this, there are tools such as StopNCII or Take It Down, which allow a parent to “upload a photo of your child that is being circulated uncontrolled on the internet, and it will find all the photos that are being circulated on all the platforms. And using this tool, you can delete the photos”.

So how can we make better use of social networks? How can we raise awareness and control our online content? Education is ultimately essential here. “Social media has become so popular that some of our lives are now spent on the internet,” said psychologist Kieffer.

What to do if you discover images of your child on paedophile websites?

Here is some advice from the Innocence in Danger Luxembourg association:

Never contact the people or sites in question directly: this could led to evidence being destroyed or expose the child even further.

Gather evidence: screenshots, full URLs, date and time.

Do not download or store images of the child, as this is illegal.

Alert the authorities: police, gendarmerie and reporting platforms: Pharos in France, Bee Secure Stopline in Luxembourg and Inhope internationally. The information will be passed on to investigators specialising in cybercrime and the sexual exploitation of minors.

“If the child knows about it, you mustn’t frighten them, but tell them that it’s not their fault and that they haven’t done anything wrong. It’s important to consult a therapist or psychologist immediately so that the child can receive follow-up care, even if they are not immediately aware of the impact of the broadcast,” explained Verstichel-Boulanger.

It is also necessary to strengthen passwords and confidentiality settings on accounts and to request the removal of images from the platforms concerned. Tiktok, Facebook and Instagram have urgent procedures in place for child sexual abuse content. “Finally, parents can contact a lawyer and specialist associations for support”, she concluded.

(This article was originally published by Virgule. Translated using AI, with editing and adaptation by John Monaghan.)