With kids becoming increasingly internet savvy, parents are being urged to be more aware of what they are up to.
There are concerns about photos taken by young people of
themselves, being used as pornography on the net.
Netsafe is urging parents to be more aware of what their kids are
up to on the internet and to become more knowledgeable
cybercitizens after a number of local cases involving self taken
child porn.
The issue has been discussed at Netsafe's International Conference on Cybercitizens, held in Queenstown.
Lee Chisholm of Netsafe says there has been a lot said in the media about sexual predators trawling the net looking for vulnerable people.
"& Well this is the other side, where they don't have to do that. The young people are actually offering to do it themselves," says Chisholm.
Young people today through various sites are now effectively making their own porn, using webcams and cell phones. Sometimes its just words.
Marian Merritt from Symantec's internet safety advocate believes that it is being fuelled by events with celebrities like Miley Cyrus, TV's Hannah Montana, who took sexy images of herself on her cell phone, which somehow got out into the media and on the web to be more specific.
"The unintended result of that notoriety is children think well its ok for them or this is the standard to which I'm held," says Merritt.
Experts at the conference say obvious dangers aside; there is not enough research yet to know what the long term effects will be.
Dr Ilene Berson, Professor of Child Development, say the young children posting pictures of themselves in sexy poses do not yet have the decision making process to be able to think about what the impact of the images will be on them later.
"What is this going to mean in five years from now or the fact that this image may not just be restricted to the individual I'm sending it to," says Berson.
The conference comes months after American authorities tracked some objectionable images back to New Zealand.
Customs officials discovered the 300 sexually explicit photos of a 12-year-old had been sent by the girl herself in exchange they say for points on a gaming site.
The people at the conference say parents have to get involved, watch cell phone use and learn about social networking online to be in a position to help.
Merritt says parents need to get into their children's world a little more, even if the child is against it.
"If the child says, oh no oh mum I don't want you there, talk about the reasons why."
And one final thing - it helps if parents know the abbreviation lingo used. A good one is POS, which means "parent over shoulder".
