WACO, Texas — Most parents are eager to share their kids' first day of school in a social media post online. However, what you decide to post has the potential to put your family in danger.
Enough Is Enough internet safety organization spokesperson Kathy Hatem says sex traffickers recruit half of their underage victims online. This is why it is important to be very vague when posting details on social media.
"We're really in the day and age of being digitally connected," Hatem explained. "We want to make sure that we're doing all we can to protect our kids from an online encounter with a dangerous predator or trafficker."
Waco Police spokesperson Cierra Shipley gave parents a few tips on what not to do when sharing back to school posts online.
Post the name of the school your child attends
Post the grade your child is in
Post what extracurricular activities they participate in
"Any of that personal information you put online stays online," Shipley said. "They can get information at any sort of way even if you've got those privacy settings on. That information can still get out to criminals."
Even beyond back to school posting, monitoring your child's internet usage is vital. Utilizing parental controls helps with this. Most parental controls allow a parent to set different levels of controls for different children. When used together, these tools provide effective layers of protection.
"Use the parental controls, use privacy settings to do things like set time limits," Hatem mentioned. "Even with all those things in place, which are incredibly helpful, it's really important that parents have ongoing conversations and dialogue with their child."
For more online safety information, Enough is Enough provides it here.