Monitoring child’s online activity is parental responsibility: RCMP

Child safety experts say it’s “quite unusual” that children as young as eight years old are sharing intimate images or videos of themselves online.

RCMP are asking for parents to be ”vigilant about children’s online activity” after they discovered four children — between the ages of eight and 12 — voluntarily shared images of themselves in recent months.

“The fact that these were done without offenders on the other side attempting to lure or groom them makes this a bit of an unusual situation,” says Signy Arnason, who is the associate executive director for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

“It really seems to be a little bit of a statement on the world we’re living in now with people spending a lot more time online,” says Nova Scotia RCMP Cpl. Jennifer Clarke.

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READ MORE: New Brunswick RCMP urge parents to be vigilant about their kids’ online activity

The fact is, after a photo or video is online, it can be impossible to remove or hide.

“If you share an intimate image online, you really have no control over that image as soon as you press send,” says Cpl. Clarke. “If you have access to a device that will take a picture, that does have access to the internet, that image can potentially go absolutely anywhere to anyone, and you have absolutely no control over where that image goes.”

Police are reminding the public that it’s illegal to share explicit images of someone younger than 18 years of age without their consent.

Experts say the psychological impacts of having images or videos of this nature shared vary depending on the child, how explicit the content is, and what is actually shown.

“The effects of that may appear in adolescence (or) as a young adult,” says Arnason. “It really all depends on the scenario, but certainly there’s no question that there can be a traumatic impact at some point.”

Arnason says having conversations with your child about online safety at a young age is necessary.

“Kids have to be used to us talking to them about how to stay safe,” she says.

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And if there’s a lapse of judgment and something concerning happens, you need to be accessible as a parent.

“What you need to be reinforcing on a regular basis is, there isn’t anything your kids can’t come to you and talk to you about, because that will also help mitigate a lot of the risks that we see reported to us.”

RCMP say there are a number of ways parents can monitor online activity.

“It’s important for parents to know that it’s really their responsibility to make sure they’re limiting the content their children have access to online,” says Cpl. Clarke. “Whether that’s through the device the children are using, through their internet provider or perhaps through a device that you can install in your home to limit internet content.”

More information can be found at www.cybertip.ca.