Paedophiles trawl social media for family photos warns eSafety Commissioner.

Innocent family photos of children in everyday life posted on social media are being sexualised by paedophiles, prompting eSafety Commissioner, Alastair MacGibbon, to warn parents to take more care.

“We come across websites that are used by child sex offenders that aren’t sexualised images of children,” Mr MacGibbon told Vanessa Mills on ABC Kimberley Local Radio.

“They are of children in school uniforms, down at the park, doing their homework, doing other things that people have uploaded.

“Then these, largely men, will sexualise those images by writing their fantasies about those kids.”

The Commissioner said parents needed to take action to prevent their family photos becoming sexualised contraband, but not posting photos was not the answer.

“The horse has bolted in relation to us uploading photos of kids online and I think it’s an accepted practice,” Mr MacGibbon said.

“But what we can do is make sure we limit those photos to our trusted friendship groups.”

Offline photo sharing provides online guide

Mr MacGibbon said we needed to reflect on how we shared photos offline to guide our behaviour online.

“Just share photos with your family like you used to,” he said.

“The going back to school photos that we used to have when I was at school would be sent to the grandparents [and] that’s great.

“So, you should do the same thing online.”

The eSafety commissioner said that he had seen what happened to family photos of children not protected by social media privacy settings.

“There is a category of child sex offender[s] who will go out online and trawl for open social media accounts, plus they’ll get them from newsletters and other such things,” Mr MacGibbon said.

“And they will meticulously categorise these photographs and share with other child sex offenders on these photo sharing websites.”

Mr MacGibbon used an analogy to illustrate the invasion of privacy taking place on the internet.

“It’s akin really, to you walking home and finding a sex offender sitting in your lounge room, going through your home photo albums,” he said.

The eSafety commissioner said that as well as parents better using online privacy settings, they needed to keep a closer eye on teenage use of social media.

“There is quite a preponderance of children actually taking sexual images of themselves and sharing it amongst their friendship groups,” he said.

But rather than restricting social media use, Mr MacGibbon advised parents to join their children online.

“Participate in your child’s online life, just as you do in their offline life,” he said.

He said being present in a child’s online life was the best way to make sure that their safety was protected.

“Download the same apps that your kids are using, learn how the apps are used,” he said.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.

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