A young athlete's digital footprint: a family review without judgment

Source and scope

eSafety describes a digital footprint as the trail left by online activity and discusses reviewing public search results, privacy settings, and tagging. The family review below is an original editorial activity built around those topics, not an eSafety assessment of athletes or a promise that online material can be completely removed.

• eSafety Commissioner — Digital footprint

Agree on the boundaries first

Offer a short review with a clear stopping point. Ask permission before looking up the young person’s name together, and explain which public pages you propose to review. This is not a request for passwords, private messages, or access to a teammate’s account. If the young person declines, offer to review the adult’s own public posts instead.

Adults should include their own sharing in the conversation. A proud match report, an old team photograph, or a public comment may be something a parent posted. Ask, ‘Does this still feel right to you?’ before asking the young athlete to change anything.

Hypothetical example

During a shared search, a family finds a public tournament photo captioned with their child’s full name. The child likes the photo but dislikes the caption. The parent first asks what change they would prefer, then contacts the club through its usual adult channel to request a shorter caption. They note the request and agree to check later. Nobody needs to describe the original post as a disaster to take the preference seriously.

Practical checklist

• Review agreed public search results together; do not investigate other children.
• Look at names, captions, locations, and visible details around sports photos.
• Ask whether the intended audience still matches the actual audience.
• On a parent’s account, review available privacy and tagging controls together.
• Choose what to keep, what to edit, and what to ask another publisher to review.
• Record requests without copying other children’s photos into a shared family document.

Try this with your family

Start with a parent’s account or public club pages. No new account is needed, and applicable platform and local age rules still apply. Agree on one search and one page to review, rather than trying to map someone’s entire online life. Let the young athlete choose which item to discuss first.

For each item, ask: ‘Keep it, change it, or ask about it?’ The adult handles changes to their own posts and contacts other publishers when needed. If you cannot change something yourselves, distinguish a request from a guaranteed result. Finish with one agreed action and a date to revisit any unanswered request.

Leave room for pride and disagreement

The review can include a moment the athlete wants to keep: a team celebration, a thoughtful comment, or a creative project. Visibility is not automatically a mistake. When you disagree, describe the specific detail that concerns you rather than labeling their whole online presence as careless.

Discuss this question together: ‘What would make you feel consulted, rather than inspected, when our family shares something about your sport?’ Write one expectation for adults as well as one for young people. Revisit those expectations when circumstances change, rather than treating today’s decision as permanent.

A small next step

If your club wants to explore conversations like this together, consider a pilot as a setting for practicing a shared approach.

• Explore a club pilot
• Explore a sample lesson