Extra care on Facebook needed for child safety

By Arne Meyer Oct 16, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Munich - Facebook is making it ever easier to share more details about a person's private life. Anything from a CV to a person's thoughts on their news ticker are considered fair game for publication and there are always more functions encouraging more openness.

This creates further dangers for children, data security expert Stephan Stengel told dpa. It's primarily young users who need reminders about how to safely use a social network.

The problem is that anyone who posts too much information without considering the consequences risks becoming the victim of stalking or bullying, says Stengel, who works with Klicksafe, an EU initiative.

That's why safety rules need to be reviewed with children so they can better protect themselves. 'It's more important than ever that children are well aware of the risks and take some precautions on the network,' he says.

Here's where parents play a role. Since children underestimate how broadly their posted information might be viewed, parents need to discuss the dangers with them.

'Sometimes it's enough to show them the profile and point out the pictures and posts,' says Stengel. He advises parents to accompany their children online, but never to secretly access their information.

'Children experience social networks as a private area. They don't enjoy it when adults observe them while they're there.'

The basic rules: addresses, telephone numbers and personal emails must never be published. Other information about family members or personal health is also best avoided, says Stengel.

When posting photos, young people need to make sure they are not too intimate. 'Beach photos with you in a bikini or pictures from pub crawls with your friends don't really belong in the public space,' he says. That's why it's important in the privacy settings to make sure that only friends can read entries and view photos.

Of course, that guideline only makes sense if children are methodical about organizing their list of friends.

Stengel says it's usually counterproductive to forbid certain behaviour, regardless of whether Facebook officially discourages users younger than 13. 'A sensible step is to accept that kids and young people want to experiment with these networks.'