Your baby’s first information breach could occur earlier than they’ve even opened a checking account. Right here’s methods to maintain their digital life protected.
03 Jun 2026
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6 min. learn
Once we speak about cybersecurity and digital security within the context of our youngsters, it’s usually framed in one in all two methods. Both it’s about inappropriate or unsafe content material – of the type that COPPA is supposed to manage within the US. Or it’s about managing the psychological and social impacts of extreme display screen time. However there’s an elephant within the room.
Our children are uncovered to most of the similar identification, privateness, and information safety dangers as their mother and father. The truth is they could be much more in danger. Serving to them perceive methods to shield their information and on-line accounts at an early age is an more and more necessary parental duty.
Why do individuals need my children’ information?
Our youngsters are digital natives. From an early age they could have logins to highschool accounts, gaming profiles, cloud images, well being data, and accounts with quite a lot of different apps. All of those comprise doubtlessly profitable information for identification thieves.
Why is that this info a preferred goal? As a result of from a fraud perspective it has a comparatively lengthy shelf life. Meaning, if it’s stolen and utilized by a scammer to open a brand new line of credit score, it’s unlikely the sufferer would discover out, till maybe they apply for his or her first mortgage a few years later. What’s extra, it’ll have a pristine credit score rating, that means the fraudulent utility will seemingly sail by means of unchecked. Fraudsters may use it as is, or mix it with made-up info to create artificial identities.
The emergence of AI instruments has made it far simpler to spin up these faux identities. They is perhaps more durable for corporations to identify. However once they do lastly flag fraud, the affect in your baby’s credit score historical past might be extreme.
These aren’t theoretical dangers. One report reveals the story of threat and compliance skilled Renata Galvão, whose identification was stolen on the age of six and used to run up debt in extra of $400,000. It reportedly took her over twenty years to clear her title and restore her credit standing. In one other case, Axton Betz-Hamilton was 11 when her identification was stolen and used to rack up hundreds of {dollars} in unpaid bank card payments. She solely discovered when making use of to arrange her first utility invoice at school.
Present information is tough to come back by, however the FTC claims that baby identification theft elevated by 40% between 2021 and 2024.
What may go fallacious?
Youngsters’s information is in danger in different methods. Children is perhaps digitally savvy sufficient to arrange on-line accounts, however they’re not at all times security-smart. They might be extra vulnerable to fall for a phishing message; particularly if it seems to be despatched from a trusted authority or good friend. Too-good-to-be-true presents, innocuous-looking quizzes and FOMO-type advertisements are all extra prone to hit dwelling if the goal is a credulous 13-year-old slightly than a skeptical grownup. Children are additionally extra prone to unwittingly obtain malware onto their gadgets or share their passwords and private information with their friends, compounding safety threat.
However it’s not simply our youngsters who characterize a possible weak hyperlink within the safety chain. Analysis from the College of Southampton final yr discovered that just about half (45%) of oldsters commonly share details about their youngsters on-line. Sharenting like this will increase the danger of it falling into the fingers of fraudsters. Round one-in-six youngsters have already skilled no less than one type of digital hurt, together with cyberbullying, privateness breaches, or identification misuse, the research claimed.
There’s additionally a rising threat that the edtech distributors, faculty platforms, gaming suppliers, good toy makers, social media corporations and different companies entrusted along with your baby’s information are themselves breached. The non-profit Identification Theft Useful resource Heart (ITRC) tracked 3322 information breaches within the US final yr – an all-time excessive and a 79% enhance from 5 years in the past. Almost 279 million victims had their information uncovered, with the healthcare and training sectors among the many high 5 for breaches.
The proliferation of AI apps can also be a privateness threat. Children could use AI instruments with no understanding that they’re really sharing delicate info which may find yourself within the fallacious fingers if the supplier is breached.
Gaming accounts are one other engaging goal for fraudsters. They comprise extremely prized belongings akin to:
- Your bank card/monetary info, for use in fraud
- Social graphs that can be utilized to spam/phish different children in the identical community
- Skins, which might be stolen and cashed out
- Personal chats which can comprise monetizable info
All of which creates a big potential floor to your baby’s private info to be uncovered.
The right way to examine if one thing’s gone fallacious
There are a number of methods to examine in case your baby has had their identification or private info (together with credentials) stolen. The next ought to all be pink flags:
- Passwords that abruptly don’t work, indicating somebody has accessed their account and adjusted the logins
- Lacking skins, cash or different objects in your baby’s gaming account
- Notifications about account modifications, logins or resets
- Purchases that you just didn’t authorize
- Buddies and contacts reporting unusual exercise or messages out of your baby’s account
- Your baby is denied welfare advantages (as a result of another person is utilizing their Social Safety particulars)
- They’re denied a pupil mortgage or checking account attributable to a poor credit standing
- Your baby receives a authorities discover claiming unpaid taxes (as a result of somebody is utilizing their particulars to register for brand new jobs)
- You obtain telephone calls or correspondence claiming overdue payments run up by your baby
It’s a shared duty
In reality, there are a number of stakeholders concerned in defending your youngsters’s identification information. Dad and mom are the obvious. But in addition your faculty, and the app builders and gadget makers they’re usually pressured to share info with. No single celebration can handle and safe all the information lifecycle.
So what are you able to do as a guardian? Restrict information sharing, securely configure account settings, and educate your baby finest practices.
Begin with the information. Take a step again and take into account whether or not it actually is critical to arrange that new account, grant permissions to that faculty app, or “sharent” on-line. Knowledge minimization is without doubt one of the core rules of the GDPR. The much less private info is on the market, the decrease the danger of it ending up within the fallacious fingers.
Subsequent, for the accounts they do have, alter the settings to attenuate threat. Meaning lengthy, robust and distinctive passwords for each account, saved in a household password supervisor. That may cut back the danger of brute-force assaults. Swap on multifactor authentication (MFA) the place potential to mitigate phishing dangers.
Evaluate all of the privateness settings on all their apps and social platforms to lock them right down to essentially the most safe model. That ought to imply location sharing/monitoring is restricted or turned off. Limit any in-app purchases so that they require your approval. Maintain all gadgets and apps up to date so that they’re much less uncovered to hacking makes an attempt. And use in-app parental controls the place obtainable to watch utilization and decrease delicate information sharing.
Apply for a credit score freeze to your baby’s identification with all three main credit score bureaus. It will require some paperwork, however is price it for the peace of thoughts which means no third celebration can apply for credit score of their title.
Lastly, it’s time to take a seat down along with your children and clarify the significance of identification safety, what’s at stake, and the way dangerous individuals can steal and use their information – together with in style phishing techniques. Train them the fundamentals of fine password administration, and methods to spot suspicious exercise on-line. Above all, they need to really feel protected telling you something.
Maintaining your baby’s identification protected shouldn’t be about proscribing their digital world. It’s about giving them the boldness to traverse it safely – now and sooner or later.
