Private chats, photos, videos, and voice notes are often shared in confidence. Forwarding, posting or showing them to others without permission violates privacy and can cause serious harm, particularly to children and young people.
The risk is greater where the content contains personally identifiable information (PII) or other sensitive details, such as a child’s full name, photograph, phone number, home or school address, location, identification documents, passwords, financial information or health-related information. Sharing such content can expose a child to identity theft, scams, stalking, impersonation, grooming or other forms of exploitation.
What may seem like a joke or harmless entertainment can quickly lead to embarrassment, cyberbullying, harassment, blackmail and emotional distress. Once private content is shared online, it may be copied, edited or redistributed beyond the sender’s control, making it difficult to remove completely.
Parents and guardians should guide children and young people on privacy, consent and responsible online behaviour, including the importance of seeking permission before sharing another person’s messages, images or recordings. Children should understand that receiving private, embarrassing or sensitive content does not make it acceptable to forward it. The responsible action is to avoid sharing it and to report any content being used to threaten, bully, expose or exploit someone.
Regular, open conversations about what children share, who they communicate with and how to respond when private content is circulated can help them make safer decisions. Children should also feel comfortable reporting such incidents without fear of blame or immediate punishment.
Where a child’s private content or personal information has been shared, parents and guardians should remain calm, listen carefully, preserve relevant evidence, help the child block and report the responsible accounts, and seek support from the school, online platform or relevant authorities where threats, blackmail, identity misuse or exploitation are involved.
By modelling respectful online behaviour and reminding children to pause before forwarding content, families can help prevent further harm and create a safer digital environment.
Private means private. Do not forward harm.