The dark side of back-to-school: Why ExpressVPN urges parents to rethink their online privacy habits

ExpressVPN and the IWF warn against the danger of 'sharenting' 56% of kids feel parents overlook their privacy concerns, research reveals Ahead of back-to-school, parents are urged to rethink their online habits As millions of students head back to the classroom, social media feeds are inevitably flooding with proud first-day-of-school photos.

But cybersecurity experts are urging parents to rethink their posting habits, warning that innocent images are increasingly being scraped and manipulated by malicious actors.

While families are often quick to warn kids about talking to strangers and using strong passwords, adults routinely post their children's names, faces, school uniforms, and birthdays with little of the same scrutiny — a phenomenon known as sharenting .

Now, ExpressVPN — the provider behind one of the best VPN s on the market — has partnered with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to sound the alarm on the modern risks of public photo sharing.

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View Deal The hidden dangers of 'sharenting' The core concern revolves around the rapid rise of AI "nudification" tools.

These easily accessible programs make it trivially simple for criminals to manipulate an ordinary photo.

In July, the National Crime Agency and the IWF explicitly warned that AI is being used to harvest everyday photos — including images lifted directly from public school websites — to generate child sexual abuse material.

IWF CEO Kerry Smith stressed the gravity of the situation, deeming it "deeply sad" that parents need to refrain from sharing important family moments because of the risk that those images could be exploited by criminals.

Yet, "Tackling this requires a collective response — from families, government, technology platforms and society as a whole — to better protect children online.” ExpressVPN already collaborates with the IWF to combat this material , blocking access across its network to web domains confirmed by the IWF to host it.

However, experts argue the first line of defense happens much earlier: before a photo is ever uploaded.