AI deepfakes and your kid’s digital footprint: What parents should know

Your child’s latest birthday photo, that cute dance video. Share them on social media and they add to your family’s digital footprint. And depending on the settings you’ve chosen, AI could use them.

Dr. Siwei Lyu, a digital forensics expert and father of two, is a Distinguished professor of computer science at SUNY who studies how AI learns from public data. The danger of sharing anything online is that it becomes fair game for AI deepfakes: fake photos, videos or voices built from real images or recordings. Deepfakes can impersonate anyone, including kids and teens.

“A child’s data might be misused to recreate an image or video of them in situations that aren’t real,” Lyu explains. “That content can stay online and affect your child for years.”

Quitting social media isn’t necessarily the answer. Instead, Lyu tells his kids to share thoughtfully: post less, choose private settings and pause to consider what you’re sharing before uploading anything personal. Here, Lyu explains how your digital footprint can be manipulated into AI deepfakes.

1. Step one: The photo goes public. When your child uploads a photo or video, it’s part of the web. Even if they think it’s private, someone could take a screenshot, upload it and it could go online.
2. Step two: Manipulation happens. A person has to choose the image and upload it into an AI deepfake tool. That’s when it crosses from simple image capture to digital manipulation.
3. Step three: It’s shared. Once the AI deepfake is created, it can spread fast—shared on social platforms, sent in private chats or even posted to websites that traffic in AI-generated or altered images. That’s when it can become harmful or invasive.

AI relies on digital footprints—protect yours. Watch this Discovery Education video.

Watch now

• Check app privacy settings regularly. Set accounts to private and limit who can view or download photos.
• Be cautious with “fun” photo apps. Many viral “age me,” “AI art” or “cartoon me” apps collect and store uploaded photos. Before you upload, check if the app mentions using your image for “research,” “training” or “improvement.” That’s a red flag.
• Teach kids that there’s really no “delete” once it’s online. Explain that once something is posted online, it can be copied, saved or reshared—even if the person who posted the original chooses to delete it later.

Lyu recommends a few practical safety habits the whole family can practice together:

• Use animated avatars instead of real photos for social profile pics.
• Remove any GPS or metadata from images before posting them online. For example, in your phone’s photo gallery, select a photo, swipe up and remove the photo’s location data.
• Watermark real photos and selfies you do share to make them less appealing to AI crawlers.

Ready to keep the conversation going? Watch Discovery Education’s video on digital footprints with your kids. Ask them to think about what your family’s online story says about you—and how to make sure it stays positive, protected and totally yours.

Digital wellness is all in the family. Explore more free classes for every age—from teen screen time to online safety for grandparents.