Young people whose digital and offline worlds have merged might be less worried about keeping things private than you are, so it’s important that you explain some of the potential privacy pitfalls, such as:
- Personal details and photos on their social networking profile might fall into the wrong hands, possibly resulting in things like cyberbullying or online grooming
- Some spammers harvest email addresses from the internet so your child might receive spam or phishing emails if they register their real email address on public websites
- They might think that they’re anonymous when they’re online or on their mobile and behave differently to the way they would in the real world (eg bullying other people or illegally downloading music) – in fact, they could be traced by their unique IP address or mobile number

Did you know?
According to Ofcom, the majority of 12-15 year olds in the UK would be happy to post photos of themselves out with their friends (58%) and post information about what they’re doing (51%)
Many internet, mobile, social networking and games providers acknowledge that privacy is a concern for their users, especially children and teenagers. They offer built-in privacy features, such as the ability to choose who can see your social networking profile or to block emails from certain people.