With the digital landscape and AI evolving at record speed, P.I.C.’s first campaign, the “Safe Selfie Campaign” seeks to address the growing issue of online photo abuse.
Families take and share an extraordinary number of photos each year. P.I.C. calls parents’ attention to the possible abuse of the photos they share - especially selfies taken and shared by their children - and we are encouraging parents to also think about how to safeguard their kids’ digital well-being as they navigate the online world.
Digital kidnapping is a form of identity theft that occurs when a stranger steals a photo of a minor from the internet and posts the photo to their own account as if it is theirs. These digital kidnappers can range from teenagers who want to roleplay as a parent by posting stolen photos of young children, to cyber criminals who might use these photos to prey on children by creating fake accounts to get close to them, which can lead to real-life child abduction. Len Edwards, the Director of the Commission of Missing and Exploited Children, warns that these photos can even be altered to create child pornography: “They can take those pictures and they can take them and manipulate them, and shadow them and put clothes on them and take clothes off of them.”
Be mindful of what and where you share, and monitor where and how your photos are used.
“Parents need to know that sharing photos of their celebrations online can quickly become a digital nightmare for families,” said Cathy Pedrayes, online safety expert and National Chairperson for P.I.C. “Image abuse affects 1 in 5 Americans and it’s important for parents to know where their kids’ selfies end up after they share them,” added Ms. Pedrayes
Help us make sure there are legislative and technical protections for our families' photos and videos online. Periodically we'll send you information about how to keep your family safe, and how to join the call for new laws to protect family imagery.
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Discover tools for image abuse detection, guide family tech talks, and reporting tools for explicit image abuse.
ImageShield® was created to help people protect themselves from the abuse of the photographs they’ve shared on social media and elsewhere online.
Deep within a big-tech data science lab, a copy of your kid (who also won’t make their bed) is being frankensteined together based on their internet usage.
With Family Link, you decide what’s best for your family. Easy to use tools allow you to understand how your child is spending time on their device, share location, manage privacy settings, and more.*
Found an image of your child you want removed, here’s a way to do that on Google.
No matter whether you’re a pro influencer or a newbie with three followers, you need to think about cybersecurity and protecting your personal data while using social media.
NCMEC’s CyberTipline is the nation’s centralized reporting system for the online exploitation of children.
No matter whether you’re a pro influencer or a newbie with three followers, you need to think about cybersecurity and protecting your personal data while using social media.
Join us in protecting the security of our loved ones’ images online.
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