75% of parents already post content about their children online, creating a digital footprint long before most kids can read a privacy policy, according to a 2024 study in the Italian Journal of Pediatrics that surveyed 228 parents at a Rome teaching hospital. Nearly a third of those parents started sharing within the child's first six months of life, and 93% had no idea what legislation, if any, covered the practice. Older but still widely cited research puts the broader figure even higher: an AVG Technologies survey of 2,200 mothers found 92% of US toddlers had an online presence by age two. The exact number shifts by study and country, but the direction does not: a child's data trail almost always starts before the child has any say in it.
What percentage of children have a digital footprint today?
75% of parents already post content about their child online, per the 2024 Italian Journal of Pediatrics pilot study of 228 parents, which also found that 98% of those parents used social media at all. That figure sits below the two-decades-old benchmark most outlets still cite: an AVG Technologies survey of 2,200 mothers across ten countries found 92% of US toddlers, and 81% on average globally, had a digital footprint by age two.
The gap between 75% and 92% is not necessarily a sign that sharenting has declined. The two studies measured different things in different places sixteen years apart: AVG asked mothers of children under two across ten Western countries in 2010, while the Italian pilot surveyed parents of children from newborn to 17 years old at a single hospital in Rome in 2024. Both are legitimate, disclosed-sample surveys, and both point to the same practical reality for any parent posting online today.
Figure 1: Three in four parents in the Italian pilot study had already posted content about their child. Source: Italian Journal of Pediatrics, "Sharenting: characteristics and awareness of parents" (July 2024, n=228).
| Study | Metric | Value | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italian Journal of Pediatrics pilot study | Parents who posted content about their child online | 75% | 2024 |
| AVG Technologies survey (US) | Toddlers with an online presence by age 2 | 92% | 2010 |
| AVG Technologies survey (10-country average) | Toddlers with an online presence by age 2 | 81% | 2010 |
| Children's Commissioner for England | Photos and videos posted of the average child by age 13 | ~1,300 | 2018 |
| Perspectus Global / Proton survey | UK parents unaware cloud services can access their photos | 48% | 2025 |
Whichever figure a given study lands on, the direction is the same: a clear majority of children today have some form of digital footprint before they are old enough to consent to it. For the broader regulatory picture behind these numbers, see our roundup of children's online privacy data.
How early does a child's digital footprint start?
Often before birth. AVG's 2010 survey found that 25% of babies already had a prenatal sonogram photo posted online, with Canada leading at 37% of mothers and the US close behind at 34%. The 2024 Italian pilot study found a similar pattern after birth: 31% of parents began posting content about their child within the first six months of life.
That early start matters because the earliest posts, sonograms, birth announcements, and first-year milestones, are the ones parents have the least practice managing privacy settings for. AVG's survey also found the average child's online footprint began at around six months of age across the ten countries studied, with a third of parents posting photos and other information within weeks of the birth.
Figure 2: A quarter of babies in the AVG study already had a digital footprint before birth. Source: AVG Technologies, 2010 survey of 2,200 mothers across ten countries.
A child's earliest digital footprint is created almost entirely by decisions the child had no part in, which is the core reason privacy regulators treat children's data as a separate, higher-protection category.
How early do children start using connected devices themselves?
Sharenting is only half the picture. Children are also gaining their own device access earlier, which adds a second, self-generated layer to the digital footprint their parents started. Common Sense Media's 2025 Census found 40% of children have their own tablet by age two, rising to 58% by age four.
By age eight, tablet ownership as a standalone category actually drops to roughly 25%, not because device access falls off but because many households shift older kids to a personal phone instead. Combined mobile device access, tablets and phones together, still covers just over half of children age eight and under, per the same census.
Figure 3: Tablet ownership rises sharply through the toddler years, then gives way to phones by age eight. Source: Common Sense Media, 2025 Census of Media Use, ages 0 to 8.
By the time a child starts using a device on their own, the footprint their parents began is usually already years old.
Do parents understand the privacy and legal risks of posting about their kids?
Not consistently. 93% of parents in the Italian pilot study did not know what legislation, if any, covers the risks of posting children's data online, including identity theft and permanent online exposure. A separate May 2025 survey of 2,019 UK parents by Perspectus Global, commissioned by Proton, found 48% did not realize cloud photo services can access and analyze the images they upload, and 53% did not know that as few as 20 photos can be enough for AI tools to build a realistic profile of a child's face.
Awareness gaps like these are exactly what a current privacy policy is supposed to close, both for the platforms processing that data and for any site or business that publishes content involving children. If your site collects, stores, or displays anything involving a minor, from a family blog to a kids' product, the disclosures a regulator checks first are the ones covering how that data is collected and who can access it. A privacy policy generator built to keep children's-data disclosures current handles that language automatically, instead of leaving it to a template last updated before these risks were widely known.
Figure 4: The consent test most children's-privacy rules apply before any data collection is allowed. Source: US COPPA framework, as summarized in FTC compliance guidance.
A privacy policy that never mentions children's data is not a neutral gap. It is a disclosure a regulator, or a parent reading it, will notice is missing. That reading gap runs in both directions: our look at how many parents actually read kids' app policies found most parents skip the very documents meant to explain this trade-off.
How does digital footprint prevalence vary by country?
The clearest country-level data still comes from AVG's 2010 survey, which found 92% of US toddlers had an online presence by age two, well above the 81% ten-country average and the 73% average across the five European countries studied. Newer, smaller studies suggest the pattern has not reversed. The 2024 Italian pilot study's 75% posting rate and the UK-focused Perspectus Global survey both point to sharenting remaining the norm rather than the exception across Western Europe and North America alike.
Figure 5: US toddlers had the highest rate of early online presence in AVG's ten-country study. Source: AVG Technologies, 2010 survey of 2,200 mothers.
No country in the AVG dataset fell below 73%, which is the clearest evidence that a child's digital footprint is now a near-universal starting condition in developed markets, not a minority behavior.
What happens to a child's digital footprint once it exists?
Once content is posted, removing it is rarely straightforward. Screenshots, cached pages, and third-party re-uploads mean a single post can outlive the platform it was published on, and few of the awareness gaps documented above improve with time. Barclays has separately projected that sharenting could account for a meaningful share of identity fraud against today's children once they reach adulthood, driven by exactly the kind of early, unmanaged data trail these studies describe.
Figure 6: A decade and a half of research keeps landing on the same finding. Source: AVG Technologies (2010), Children's Commissioner for England (2018), Italian Journal of Pediatrics (2024), Perspectus Global/Proton (2025).
The practical takeaway is not that parents should stop sharing. It is that the data trail starts earlier and lasts longer than most parents, and most of the businesses processing that data, currently plan for.
The Bottom Line
75% of parents already post content about their child online, and the earlier, larger AVG benchmark of 92% for US toddlers suggests that figure could plausibly be even higher once broader populations are measured again. Either way, most children today have a digital footprint before they can meaningfully understand what that means, often starting with a sonogram photo months before birth. The privacy gap is not just parental awareness, 93% did not know what legislation applied in the Italian study, it is also a disclosure gap on the business side. Any site or product that touches a child's data, directly or through user-generated content, needs a privacy policy that names that fact rather than staying silent on it. That obligation extends well beyond apps built squarely for kids; our estimate of how many websites are likely child-directed in 2026 puts the number in the tens of millions, many of which have never run the FTC's own test.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of children have a digital footprint? 75% of parents already post content about their child online, according to a 2024 Italian Journal of Pediatrics pilot study of 228 parents. An older but widely cited AVG Technologies survey of 2,200 mothers put the figure even higher, at 92% of US toddlers and 81% on average across ten countries by age two.
How old is a child when their digital footprint starts? Often before birth. AVG's 2010 survey found 25% of babies had a prenatal sonogram photo posted online, and the 2024 Italian pilot study found 31% of parents began posting about their child within the first six months of life.
How many photos of a child are posted online by the time they are a teenager? Roughly 1,300 photos and videos, according to the Children's Commissioner for England's 2018 report Who Knows What About Me?, which tracked the average child's data trail up to age 13.
Do parents understand the privacy risks of posting about their children? Not consistently. 93% of parents in the 2024 Italian pilot study were unaware of the legislation covering the risks of sharing children's data, and 48% of UK parents surveyed by Perspectus Global in 2025 did not know cloud photo services can access and analyze the images they upload.
Where the Numbers Come From
- Italian Journal of Pediatrics. (2024). "Sharenting: characteristics and awareness of parents publishing sensitive content of their children on online platforms." Pilot study of 228 parents at Umberto I Teaching Hospital, Rome, published 30 July 2024.
- Dark Reading, reporting on AVG Technologies' 2010 "Digital Diaries" survey of 2,200 mothers across ten countries. 92% of US toddlers and 81% average had an online presence by age two; the original AVG release is no longer live.
- Children's Commissioner for England. (2018). "Who Knows What About Me? A Children's Commissioner Report into the Collection and Sharing of Children's Data." Roughly 1,300 photos and videos posted per child by age 13.
- Proton. (2025). "What 2,000 UK Parents Really Know About Cloud Storage." Perspectus Global survey of 2,019 UK parents with children under 16, published 15 May 2025.
- Common Sense Media. (2025). "Digital Childhood Starts at Age Two: 2025 Census of Media Use, Ages 0 to 8." Tablet ownership 40% at age 2, 58% at age 4, 25% at age 8.
Note: All figures verified as of July 2026. The AVG Technologies 2010 figures are the oldest data point in this post and are cited via contemporaneous secondary coverage because the original AVG release is no longer hosted; treat the Italian Journal of Pediatrics 2024 pilot study as the more current, though smaller and regionally limited, benchmark. Sharenting and children's-privacy figures are refreshed at least twice a year as newer surveys publish.
