Deepfakes of Your Kid: Lock the Photos, Then Take Them Down

You do not need another scare story. You need the order of operations.

A deepfake is an AI image, video, or voice clip made to look or sound like a real person. For kids, the worst version is a nudify app: someone takes a normal school photo and generates a fake nude. Classmates do this. It is a federal crime. It is also happening.

Two jobs. Lock the photos so there is less to steal. If a fake is already out, take it down in the right order.

Lock the photos tonight

Public photos of your kid, with their name and school in the same place, are the raw material. You do not have to disappear them. You do have to stop handing out the combo.

Your posts. Set old kid photos to friends-only or take them down. Turn off public tagging. Ask grandparents and the team mom to stop posting full-name captions on public photos.

School and sports. Ask if the yearbook, booster page, or league site is public. Opt out of public galleries if you can.

Do not upload their face to random AI. Headshot-to-cartoon apps, make-them-an-action-figure tools, and free face-swap sites are the easy path. If the tool is not one you chose, and you cannot see what it keeps, do not feed it a photo of your child.

Voice. A few seconds of a public video can be enough to clone a voice. Pick a family code word. Never post it. If a call says your kid is in trouble and needs money, hang up and call them yourself.

Tell your kid this, once, out loud

If someone makes a fake of you, come to me first. You are not in trouble.

Do not make one of a classmate, even as a joke. Creating or sharing an intimate image of a minor is a federal crime. Age of the kid who pressed the button does not make it a prank.

Do not send nudes. Do not save other kids nudes. If someone sends you one, show me. Do not forward it.

If a fake is already out

Do this in order. Do not skip to messaging the other parent.

1. Take the shame off the table. Say it is not their fault. A fake documents nothing they did.

2. Do not forward the image. Do not download it to keep a copy. Do not send it to the group chat to prove it. Write down the URL, the username, the date, and where you saw it.

3. Ask the platform to take it down. Use the app report flow. Under the federal Take It Down Act, covered platforms must give you a way to ask, and they must remove the image and known identical copies within 48 hours of a valid request. That includes real images and AI forgeries. The FTC parent-facing steps are here.

4. If the platform does not take it down, report the platform. TakeItDown.ftc.gov is for platforms that ignore a valid request, have no removal process, or have a broken one. It is not the first place you file. Ask the app first.

5. If your child is under 18, tell NCMEC. Report through the CyberTipline. If the file is already on a device in your house, use NCMEC Take It Down on that device. It fingerprints the file without uploading the photo. Do not download or send the image just so you can use the tool: takeitdown.ncmec.org.

6. Call the police, and tell the FBI. Local police, plus tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI. Sharing, or threatening to share, an intimate image of a minor is a federal crime.

7. Tell the school in writing if classmates or a school device are involved. Email the principal or counselor so there is a record.

8. Do not pay. Do not send more photos. Do not give anyone access to a phone or a bank account. Block them.

Why we wrote this

We built HeyOtto because kids were already putting their faces, homework, and late-night questions into tools their parents could not see. A parent creates the account. You can read the chats. Otto is the assistant, not a friend. We do not use kids conversations to train models, and we do not sell them.

That does not stop a classmate with a yearbook photo. The lock-the-photos steps do that. What we can do is keep the AI they actually use from becoming another place a photo or a secret goes that you never see.

If you want that setup, start with the parent guide. When you are ready, try HeyOtto free.

This is a how-to, not legal advice. If your kid is in crisis, call or text 988. For the longer parent Q and A this was pulled out of, see Parenting in the Age of AI.