Key Takeaways
Sharenting & Proxy Privacy
"Proxy privacy" refers to situations where one person's personal information is shared online by someone else — without their direct consent. The most common forms involve parents posting about their children (sometimes called "sharenting") or adult children managing the social media presence of an elderly relative. In both cases, the person whose data is shared has little or no control over what is disclosed.
From a data-rights perspective, proxy sharing creates a permanent digital record tied to a real individual who never agreed to participate — a record that can be harvested by platforms, advertisers, and data brokers.
The Privacy Gap That Families Often Miss
Most people think of online privacy as a personal choice — something you manage through your own accounts and settings. But for two groups in particular, that control belongs largely to someone else: children, who depend on adults to represent them online, and older adults, whose family members sometimes manage or contribute to their digital presence on their behalf.
This isn't always a problem with bad intentions. A grandparent's health milestone gets shared in a family group chat that's less private than assumed. A toddler's birthday photos go up on a parent's public profile. A well-meaning adult child posts an update about a parent's medical situation to keep relatives informed. In each case, real personal information about a real person enters the digital ecosystem — without that person's meaningful consent.
Understanding the foundations of online privacy helps, but proxy sharing requires thinking one step further: not just about your own data, but about the data of people who rely on you.
What Gets Shared — and Where It Goes
The types of information shared on behalf of others tend to fall into recognizable categories:
- Images — photos that may include faces, locations, or identifiable details like school uniforms or street signs
- Location information — check-ins, tagged places, or geotagged photos that reveal where someone lives, goes to school, or receives care
- Health and personal milestones — diagnoses, treatments, developmental stages, or emotional struggles shared as updates
- Behavioral data — details about routines, preferences, and relationships that build a profile over time
Each of these carries risk beyond the obvious. Platform privacy settings affect who among users can see a post, but they don't prevent the platform from collecting and processing the underlying data. Photos shared even in "private" settings can be screenshotted and redistributed. And metadata embedded in image files — including GPS coordinates — can reveal precise locations to anyone who knows where to look.
~1,300
Photos shared online per child before age 13
Research published by security firm AVG estimated that parents share an average of around 1,300 photos of a child online before the child's 13th birthday.
2/3
Parents who share child info without asking the child
A Nominet study found that approximately two-thirds of parents share information about their children on social media without asking the child's permission, even when the child is old enough to have a view.
72%
Adults concerned about how family shares their data
A Pew Research Center survey found that roughly 72% of US adults say they are at least somewhat concerned about how much information social media companies have about them — a concern that extends naturally to proxy sharing.
It's also worth recognizing that this data doesn't disappear. Even deleted posts may have been indexed, archived, or downloaded before removal. The implications of data exposure are real for anyone whose information ends up in the wrong place — including children who had no say in the matter.
The Specific Case of Children
Children are unable to consent to data collection in any meaningful legal or practical sense. In the US, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) restricts platforms from collecting data on children under 13 — but it doesn't restrict what parents post. That distinction matters: a parent's post about a child creates data about that child, processed by the platform, potentially visible to third parties, and persistent long after the child grows up.
Researchers and child development advocates have raised concerns about what's sometimes called a child's "digital footprint by proxy" — the accumulation of information about a person that begins before they can walk or talk. By the time a child is old enough to understand privacy, they may already have years of public posts, photos, and personal details attached to their identity online.
This doesn't mean parents should never share anything. It means being deliberate: choosing what to share, with whom, on which platforms, and with what settings — and periodically revisiting those choices as children grow and platforms change.
Older Adults and Delegated Digital Presence
The privacy considerations shift, but don't disappear, when it comes to older relatives. Adult children or other caregivers sometimes post health updates, share photos, or manage accounts on behalf of parents or grandparents — often out of genuine care and a desire to keep the wider family connected.
What's easy to overlook is that an older adult is still a full person with privacy interests. A post about a parent's dementia diagnosis, fall, or financial situation may feel like family news — but it's also sensitive personal data about an identifiable individual. That information can affect how that person is perceived, how they're treated, and in some cases, whether they become a target for scams or exploitation.
Privacy matters even when there's nothing to hide — and that's as true for a 78-year-old as it is for anyone else. The same logic applies: data collected today can be misused in ways that aren't yet visible.
Before You Post About a Family Member
Ask yourself: Would this person share this information themselves? Could it reveal their location, health, or daily routine? Is this something they'd want attached to their name years from now? A moment's reflection before posting is one of the simplest privacy protections available — no app or setting required.
Practical Steps Families Can Take
There's no single rule that works for every family, but a few practices consistently reduce proxy privacy risks:
- Have the conversation before posting. Make it a habit to ask before sharing photos or personal information about another family member — especially children or anyone who can't speak for themselves in the moment.
- Audit your privacy settings regularly. Know who can actually see what you post. Many default settings share more than users realize. This applies to social media, messaging apps, and photo-sharing services.
- Strip location metadata from photos before sharing them publicly. Most smartphones allow you to disable geotagging in camera settings, or you can remove it using free tools before uploading.
- Think about the future audience. A child who is two today will be twenty in eighteen years. Content posted now may follow them into job applications, relationships, and contexts that don't yet exist.
- Set family-wide norms, not individual rules. Agreements that everyone understands — "we don't post health information about each other" or "photos of the kids go to the family group only" — are easier to follow consistently than case-by-case decisions.
For a broader look at how apps collect data quietly in the background, it helps to understand that even well-intentioned sharing feeds systems designed to gather and monetize personal information — including about people who never signed up.