Parents advised not to post children's images online to combat AI manipulation

The guidance also recommends auditing social media accounts for old pictures that could be used by predators and revisiting photo consent agreements.

Britain's National Crime Agency has recommended parents should not put photos of their children on public display online as part of landmark guidance to tackle the rise of AI-generated sexual abuse material.

The move comes as the Data Protection Commission in Ireland said earlier this week that the majority of parents here are continuing to post content of their children online despite most being aware of the risk of the images being misused. It said a large percentage are " sharenting" either daily or several times a week.

The advice issued by the British agency and the child safety watchdog, the Internet Watch Foundation, suggests parents and guardians make their social media accounts private or share pictures of their children through a “close friends” group.

The agency and the foundation stressed they were not telling parents how to behave online, but said they should be aware of the problem and how to tackle it.

The guidance also recommends auditing social media accounts for old pictures that could be used by predators and revisiting photo consent agreements — including with schools or sports clubs — that could have been signed a few years ago before breakthroughs in AI made image manipulation possible.

The guidance sets out a trio of actions: Checking privacy settings on social media accounts; reviewing who can see images of their children; and having open discussions about giving permission for people and organisations to publish images of children online.

The agency said most parents and carers would not be aware that advances in the technology had given criminals publicly available tools to create child sexual abuse material without needing to contact — or “groom” — victims directly.

“The average parent or carer does not post a picture of a child online thinking that it might be scraped to be turned into [child sexual abuse material],” said Lorna Sinclair, a child sexual abuse education manager at the agency. 

“There are lots of parents and carers who do not know that this problem exists.”

Alex Cooney, the chief executive of Ireland's CyberSafeKids, said: “In 2026, it’s hard to say you don’t know the risks [of sharenting]. There has been a lot more information out there about it.” 

She called for parents to seek children’s permission before posting about them — something 40% don’t do according to the research —arguing that approval is particularly relevant in order to educate children about the importance of consent and “thinking before sharing”.

• Guardian