Kiwi kids need better protection when it comes to what is being shared about them by their parents online, says privacy expert Nikki Chamberlain. 

The Auckland University law school senior lecturer has looked at the lack of safeguards in place for the third edition of a book she has co-edited, Privacy Law in New Zealand. 

Chamberlain tells Kathryn Ryan that children are being subjected to "sharenting" - the oversharing of images and videos of a minor by their parents or guardians - leaving them vulnerable. 

Her research explored the harms that can occur from commercial and non-commercial sharenting. 

“Non-commercial sharenting is ... where you have parents who are merely sharing images and videos of their children online for social and relational purposes, so it builds a sense of community and connection to people within their social network.” 

But even this seemingly innocent action has risks, she says.  

Nikki Chamberlain. Photo: Supplied

“Those images can be manipulated, there’s what we call deepfakes on the internet, which is where you take the image or the face of a child and then you superimpose it on the body of somebody else. It’s done in sex trafficking circles; we call that virtual kidnapping.” 

Those consequences, along with real kidnapping and stalking, are the more severe ones, but on another level, sharenting can result in children being subjected to trolling, bullying at school, cyberbullying, alienation, depression, and anxiety, Chamberlain says. 

"Anything that might embarrass your child or humiliate them, is something that parents need to think about why they’re sharing it. 

“Because I think often we share things for the benefit of the parent and not the child, and we really need to have the best interest of the child at heart because these things can live for a very, very long time.” 

The golden rule is prioritising the best interests of the child, she says, and if in doubt, it is best not to post it. 

“So a child under the age of say 7, 8, 9, 10, really can’t give informed consent, they don’t really know what’s happening, and so to put their image online, you’re essentially usurping their right to privacy because they haven’t been able to say whether they want to partake in that or not.” 

The bigger concerns in her research were around commercial sharenting, where advertisers pay child influencers to sell toys, clothing or merchandise, she says. 

"There are no specific laws to protect child influencers. 

“We’re really lagging behind in this area. France, on the other hand, is a jurisdiction which is far more advanced and they’ve got rules around needing to get permissions for certain advertisers to use child influencers and have rules around putting the money the child influencers [earns] in a bank account until they’re 16 years old so it can be used for their benefit.” 

At the extreme end, exploitation of children is a concern, she says. 

“It made me start to think what are the long-term consequences of using children in this unregulated industry this way and I think, unfortunately, they could be quite serious, long-term and detrimental.” 

She suggests a third-party watchdog needs to have the power to lodge complaints for investigations against parents or legal parents if these issues appear, because children are basically voiceless. 

“In other words, if you have an image or material about you online and it was posted a significant amount of time ago, say 10 years ago, then you should have a right to require the Internet provider to delete that information about you so that it’s no longer searchable. 

“We had a really good opportunity with the Privacy Act 2020 to enact it and we just didn’t and I think that is a real downfall, it put us behind other jurisdictions already. 

Privacy Law in New Zealand book cover. Photo: Thomson Reuters

“Essentially we have a 2020 act which is really for 2011 and with technology continually advancing, we’re kind of chasing the tail of how do we protect privacy rights but in particular privacy rights for those most vulnerable.” 

It’s possible that sharenting has broadened what is deemed as ‘acceptable’ images of children, she says, but the law still requires these not be highly objectionable to the ordinary reasonable person. 

“[In] my research, one of the recommendations as well is an educational model. 

“We should be educating parents more as to the consequences, socially and developmentally of a child, but also what can happen at the severe end so that parents do think twice, because I think unfortunately instantaneous photography on iPhones is so easy to do, it becomes second nature and people won’t necessarily realise the impact it could have long term.” 

This story was originally published on RNZ