Protecting Your Child's Digital Privacy in Australia: A Parent's Guide to the Law

Your child's digital footprint begins long before they get their first phone. By age five, the average Australian child has been photographed and data-tagged hundreds of times by social media algorithms, app analytics, and online services their parents didn't even realise were collecting information about them.

Understanding your legal rights and your child's privacy protections is the first step to making informed decisions about how to share their information online. This guide explains what Australian law actually says about children's digital privacy and what it means for your family.

The Australian Privacy Act 1988: What It Actually Protects

The Privacy Act 1988 is Australia's main privacy law. It applies to most private organisations (with over A$3 million turnover) and all Australian government agencies. It outlines 13 Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) that organisations must follow.

The challenge for parents is this: the Privacy Act protects personal information, but it assumes the person (or their guardian) has control over whether their information is shared in the first place. Once you've posted your child's photo publicly on Facebook, you've essentially consented to Facebook using it. The Privacy Act can't undo that decision.

However, the Act does protect your child in important ways:

Privacy Principle 1: Open and Transparent Management

Organisations must have a clear privacy policy explaining what data they collect and how they use it. Many parents never read these policies. They should. If you're using an app, checking its privacy policy is the first step to understanding what happens to your child's photos and data.

Privacy Principle 3: Collection of Solicited Personal Information

An organisation must collect personal information only by lawful and fair means. This means if TikTok collects location data from your child's phone, they must have made it clear to you that they're doing so. In practice, they bury this in terms of service. Your responsibility as a parent is to read those terms before allowing your child to use the service.

Privacy Principle 5: Notification

When an organisation collects personal information about your child, they must notify you of their identity, why they're collecting it, how it will be used, and whether they'll disclose it to other organisations. Again, this is typically buried in dense legal language.

Privacy Principle 6: Use and Disclosure

Personal information collected for one purpose shouldn't be used for another without consent. This is where the real protection lies. If a photo-sharing app collects photos for sharing with family, they shouldn't use those photos to train AI models or sell them to advertisers without getting fresh permission from you.

Privacy Principle 13: Correction of Personal Information

You have the right to request that an organisation correct or amend personal information they hold about you or your child. This is useful if you discover an error, though correcting information after it's been widely shared is nearly impossible.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)

The OAIC is Australia's independent office responsible for protecting privacy and promoting open government. They've released specific guidance for parents and children's privacy. Their key recommendations directly address social media sharing:

On Social Media and Children:

The OAIC acknowledges that social media is a feature of modern family life, but warns that posting photos of children comes with risks:

Photos can be taken and used without permission

Children lack control over their digital representation

Data collected creates profiles that follow them into adulthood

The permanent nature of online posts means deleted content can resurface

Their recommendation: use privacy settings, limit visibility, and consider whether the benefit of sharing outweighs the risk of exposure.

On Data Collected About Children:

Apps often collect far more data about children than parents realise: location data, viewing history, social connections, behavioural patterns. The OAIC recommends parents ask themselves:

What data is being collected?

Why is it being collected?

How long is it stored?

Who has access to it?

Will the child be able to delete it later?

For most social media platforms, the answer to that last question is no.

Data Collection Practices: What's Being Tracked About Your Child

Different platforms and apps collect vastly different amounts of data about your child.

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The data collected about your child is used to build detailed profiles. These profiles are used to target advertising, personalise content, and increasingly, to predict behaviour. A four-year-old with a Facebook profile has a data profile more detailed than an adult's.

What the Australian Privacy Commissioner Recommends

In 2023, the Australian Privacy Commissioner released specific guidance on "Sharenting" (parental sharing of child information online). The recommendations include:

1. Minimise what you share

Post less frequently than you might want to. Ask yourself if each photo needs to be shared.

2. Use maximum privacy settings

Set your account to private. Only share with people you trust. Disable comments if possible.

3. Never include identifying information

Don't post your child's full name, birth date, school name, or location data. This information combined with photos is valuable to identity thieves and predators.

4. Consider your child's future perspective

How will your child feel about this photo being online when they're 15? 25? 45? If you wouldn't want it public, don't post it.

5. Check your settings regularly

Social media platforms change their privacy settings frequently. What was private last month might be public now. Check quarterly.

6. Use dedicated privacy-focused alternatives

If photo sharing is your goal, use tools designed specifically for that purpose rather than general social media platforms.

Data Breach and Security: What Happens When Companies Fail to Protect Your Data

Privacy laws assume companies will protect personal information they collect. That assumption has failed repeatedly.

In 2021, Facebook suffered a data breach affecting 500 million users globally, including Australian users. Personal information included phone numbers, locations, and relationship details. Companies don't typically report explicitly which photos of children were exposed, but if your data was in the breach, your child's photos were potentially exposed too.

In 2022, Optus (an Australian company) suffered a data breach exposing 9.8 million customers' personal information, including children's details.

When these breaches happen, parents have limited recourse. You can lodge a complaint with the OAIC, but the data is already exposed. There's no way to retrieve it. Deleting the app won't delete the data they've already collected.

This is why privacy-focused companies and dedicated family apps are worth considering. If a company doesn't collect children's data to begin with, they can't expose it in a breach.

Your Legal Rights as a Parent

Under Australian law, you have several rights regarding your child's data:

Right of Access

You can request what personal information an organisation holds about your child. Most social media companies will provide some data (though the real machine learning data they use isn't disclosed). Google will give you a detailed archive of everything they know about your child. This can be shocking.

Right to Correction

If the information is inaccurate, you can ask for it to be corrected.

Right to Complain

If you believe an organisation has breached the Privacy Act, you can lodge a complaint with the OAIC. They'll investigate.

Right to an Opt-Out

If an organisation is using your child's data for direct marketing, you have the right to opt out. Note: this is narrower than general privacy protection.

How to Check What Data Companies Hold About Your Child

For Google:

1. Go to myactivity.google.com

2. Sign in with the account associated with your child's photos

3. Download your data takeout to see everything Google has collected

4. You'll likely be shocked at the detail.

For Facebook:

1. Go to Settings → Download Your Information

2. Select photos, posts, and other data

3. Download the full file

4. Review what's been collected and how it's been categorised

For most other companies, you'll need to submit a formal access request. This varies by company but usually requires writing to their privacy officer.

Practical Steps to Protect Your Child's Privacy

Immediate actions:

1. Review the privacy settings on any account where you've posted photos of your child

2. Read the privacy policy of any app your child uses (even if they're very young)

3. Download your data from Google and Facebook to see what's been collected

4. Consider removing photos you've posted that include identifying details

Ongoing practices:

1. Ask yourself before posting: "Is this necessary to share?"

2. Use privacy settings and assume they might change

3. Never post location data, school names, or identifying details

4. Don't use your child's real full name online

5. Be selective about which friends can see posts

6. Consider alternatives to social media for photo sharing

Long-term strategy:

1. As your child grows, involve them in decisions about their digital identity

2. Teach them about online privacy and data protection

3. Provide them with privacy controls on their own accounts

4. Don't assume they're comfortable with photos you've posted about them (even if they were fine with it at age five)

The Future: Your Child's Digital Legacy

Digital privacy is becoming increasingly important as your child grows up. The photos and data collected about them now will form part of their digital identity for life. Potential employers might search for them. Partners might find old posts. Insurers might use data collected about them as a child to make decisions as an adult.

Australian law is evolving. There's growing discussion about whether children should have the right to sue parents who've shared photos without their explicit consent. Some countries are starting to recognise this. It may not be long before Australian courts follow.

The safest approach is to assume that anything you post about your child online should be something they'd be comfortable with knowing about for the rest of their life. If you wouldn't want it public, don't post it. If you want to share photos with family, use tools designed to protect privacy rather than tools designed to maximise engagement and data collection.

Tools built specifically for family photo sharing, with Australian Privacy Act compliance and no commercial data collection, exist precisely for this purpose. They're not a perfect solution, but they're significantly better than posting on social media platforms designed to collect and monetise your child's information.

Your child's privacy is a gift they'll be grateful for when they grow up.