Your 'harmless' habit may pose a serious risk to your children

If you're a proud parent addicted to sharing images of your little one with friends and family members online, these recent figures may cause you to rethink your contribution to social media.

According to Australia's new Children's eSafety Commissioner, Alastair Mac Gibbon, approximately half of all images used on paedophilac websites were originally posted on social media sites.

In an extremely worrying summation of the situation, Mr. MacGibbon asserted; "Many users clearly identify that they have obtained the content through trawling social media accounts."

While the vast majority of parents exercise caution when sharing snaps of their children, it's important to note the photos themselves need not be in any way suggestive to make their way onto inappropriate and illegal websites.

Utilising the images for their own purposes, users of illegal websites often accompany the seemingly innocent photos with explicit comments explained Mr. MacGibbon.

While speaking to the Sydney Herald, Mr. MacGibbon acknowledges the motivation behind a parent's decision to upload photographs of their children to personal websites, but urges them to consider the implications of the practice.

"Families - very innocently - maintain blogs where they catalogue every aspect of their children's lives, with no security against these obsessive efforts to obtain content," he warned.

Highlighting the severity of the situation, he continued: "Within 10 days of being uploaded, the content had been viewed 1.7 million times and comments had been posted that explicitly sexualised the material."

Is this something you consider when logging into your accounts?