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Parents giving away their baby’s privacy to digital world

Wanting to get your newborn’s photo on social  media? Not so fast if you value your baby’s privacy.

Overzealous parents-to-be are creating a digital footprint for their children — before they’re born, a new warning from the Children’s Commissioner for England says.

Proud moms and pops are giving away an alarming amount of their offspring’s personal information which could cause huge security and privacy issues as they age. The report shows that kids will have an average of 1,300 pictures and videos of themselves posted online by their parents by the time they’re 13.

Yes, this includes ultrasound photos.

Anne Longfield, the commissioner, also cautions that children’s lives are being “datafied” thanks to a plethora of smart toys and apps in their lives, according to the Telegraph.

“We simply do not know what the consequences of all this information about our children will be,” Longfield says.

Her sentiments come on the heels of a new report from the Children’s Commission for England, which studied the scope of children’s information that parents give out before they turn 18.

The study also discovered that when children get their own social media accounts, around age 11, they will post about 70,000 times before they turn 18. This information dump could influence college, mortgage and job applications, the report warns.

Parents could also be handing their children’s personal info to people who will take advantage of it, even by posting their children’s birthday and where they live.

This problem might be worse in the US, where privacy laws are more lax than across the pond. A recent report found that 95 percent of apps for children 5 and under are using at least one form of advertising.

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