Privacy & data
What personal information means online, the hidden risks of location data in photos, account security, and what apps actually collect about your child.
What counts as personal information?
Children often don't realise how much information they give away incidentally. These are the most commonly shared pieces of information — and why each one matters.
Never share publicly
Safe to share publicly
📍 The hidden risk in photos — location metadata
Every photo taken on a smartphone contains invisible metadata — including the precise GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken. When your child posts a photo online, anyone who downloads it may be able to extract their exact location — often accurate to within a few metres of your home.
Most social platforms strip this metadata before displaying photos — but not all, and not always. The safe habit is to turn off location data in photos at the camera level. On iPhone: Settings → Privacy → Location Services → Camera → Never. On Android: Camera app → Settings → Location tags → Off.
This also applies to photos taken in or near your home, or at your child's school. A photo posted from the school field on the last day of term, combined with a school name mentioned elsewhere, gives enough information to locate where your child is every day.
What apps actually collect about your child
📍 Location data
Many apps request location permission even when it's not needed for core function. This data is commercially valuable and may be sold to data brokers who build profiles on individuals including children.
🎭 Behaviour and interests
Every tap, swipe, pause, and search on a platform is recorded. This data is used to build a behavioural profile used for targeted advertising — and increasingly, to train AI models.
💬 Message content
Most messaging apps state they read messages for safety and advertising purposes unless end-to-end encryption is enabled. Even encrypted platforms may retain metadata about who your child communicates with and when.
🎙️ Voice and camera
Apps can request microphone and camera access. Many activate these beyond their stated purpose. Review app permissions regularly in your device settings — remove access for any app that doesn't genuinely need it.
📊 Device information
Apps routinely collect device identifiers, network information, battery level, and other device data — enough to identify a specific device across different apps and platforms even without an account.
🤝 Third-party sharing
Most app privacy policies allow data to be shared with "trusted partners." This frequently means advertising networks, analytics companies, and data brokers. Children's data has specific legal protections under UK GDPR but enforcement is inconsistent.
🔐 Account security — the basics every family needs
Use a unique password for every account. A breach of one account should not compromise all others. A password manager (Bitwarden is free and excellent) makes this manageable.
Enable two-factor authentication on all important accounts. Email, social media, and gaming accounts should all require a second confirmation when logging in from a new device.
Never use the same password as school accounts. School systems are frequently targeted. A breach of a school system that exposes your child's password could compromise their personal accounts if the same password is used.
Change passwords immediately after any breach notification. Use haveibeenpwned.com to check if an email address has appeared in a known data breach.
What to do right now
Turn off location data in your child's camera app. iPhone: Settings → Privacy → Location Services → Camera → Never. Android: Camera → Settings → Location tags → Off.
Check app permissions on their device. Settings → Privacy → review each permission category (location, microphone, camera). Remove any permissions that aren't genuinely needed for the app's function.
Set all social media accounts to private. Any account on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat or YouTube should be private — not public. See our platform settings hub for step-by-step instructions.
Disable live location sharing. Snapchat's Snap Map and Find My Friends features share real-time location. These should be set to Ghost Mode or disabled entirely for children.
Set up two-factor authentication on their email account first. Email is the recovery method for all other accounts — it's the most important account to secure. Enable 2FA and make sure the recovery phone number is yours.