What is a safe way for you and your family to share photos and videos? Because kids love to see themselves and their friends in photos and videos, first, be positive. There is so much creativity expression with photography and videography. Cameras of all shapes and sizes are more accessible and easier to use. Share tips for taking better pics/video, such as the "rule of thirds" and how to avoid back lighting. Also disable the GPS tagging function of the phone/camera. There's no need to post EXACTLY where you're taking photos when sharing them. This is generally a fairly simple set up procedure and you may want to do it on your own device as well.
Now for sharing. Forget about texting, Instagram and Facebook. Texting a video or photo is like handing over the file for someone to do anything they want with it. What may be funny and cute to your child and their friends, may not be so amusing out of context and gone viral around the world. With texting, you lose complete control of what you share. While Facebook has some privacy controls, their terms of service give THEM very flexible permissions to use your content, and Facebook has had problems implementing their own privacy policies on more than one occasion, usually blaming it on a third party application provider. Besides, did you know it's a violation of federal law for anyone under the age of 13 to set up an account! Same for Instagram, and privacy controls for sharing there are non-existent. Photos in Instagram are visible to all members.
For more "social security" if you will, you can create galleries using iPhoto or Shutterfly and even allow friends and family to add images, but not download files. A password protected blog is another alternative that can provide safer sharing. You can also use an app like Burst.it. This is a family friendly sharing app that allows you to set up groups of friends/family, and parental controls for uploading and sharing photos and videos. It doesn't allow others to download or manipulate the content. The files are saved online, and can even be "unshared," yet still archived. To learn more about this great app, visit www. burst.it
