Colman Noctor: Should I ask my three-year-old for their consent to post a picture of them online?

In 2018 the digital age of consent in Ireland was agreed to be set at 16 years of age - this was the age at which children were deemed capable of sharing their data with online organisations and companies.

Those pics are cute - but think about their ramifications.

Sharing pictures of a family event, their first steps or a school achievement on social media is an easy way to connect with our wider community. But what are the long-term implications for the child who features in these posts?

The concept of sharing has changed in the last decade. Traditionally it meant dividing and distributing with someone else, but the concept of virtual ‘sharing’ is quite different. Now we share digital forms of media with our social network audience. Often the content (a link, a meme or a video) does not belong to us and so we are not required to give anything in the transaction. The concept of ownership is complex in the internet world because in cyberspace no one really ‘owns’ anything, so everyone has claim to everything. The benefit of this freedom is that it costs us nothing to share content, but the downside is that as soon as we share content, we surrender our ownership of it.