Privacy settings, location sharing and blackmail awareness

Good privacy settings stop most problems before they start. This lesson goes beyond the basics in Personal Safety (ps-08): what default protections exist for teens, how to control who knows where you are, and exactly what to do if anyone ever tries to pressure or blackmail you.

Watch the 1-minute overview

Watch the full video guide for this module

Protections that may already be switched on

• Instagram's Teen Accounts (announced September 2024) make accounts private by default for teens under 16, and for under-18s when they sign up. Teens approve new followers (Instagram).
• Teen Accounts also limit messages to people the teen follows or is already connected with, limit who can tag or mention them, and filter offensive words with Hidden Words (Instagram).
• Teens get a reminder to leave the app after 60 minutes each day, and sleep mode mutes notifications from 10pm to 7am (Instagram). Under-16s need a parent's permission to loosen these settings.
• The UAE's Child Digital Safety Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 26 of 2025) came into force on 1 January 2026 and requires platforms to use privacy-by-default settings for children's accounts, meaning under-18s (Clyde and Co). Platforms have until around January 2027 to comply.
• Defaults help, but they are not the whole story. Check your settings yourself on every app.

Your 15-minute privacy audit

• Who can see your posts, stories and follower list? Set it to people you actually know.
• Who can message you, tag you or mention you? Choose 'people I follow' or 'no one' where possible.
• Only accept friend and follow requests from people you know in real life. Criminals use fake profiles and hacked accounts to get close to young people (lesson cy-01).
• Remove followers you do not know in real life. A stranger in your followers can see everything you post to 'followers only'.
• Look at your profile while logged out, or ask a friend to, to see what a stranger sees.

Location sharing without oversharing

• Snap Map lets contacts see where you are. In Ghost Mode, you are the only person who can see your location; 'My Friends' shows it to all your contacts; 'Select Friends' lets you choose (UK Safer Internet Centre).
• The UK Safer Internet Centre warns that location sharing can help someone work out where you live or spend your time, and advises sharing only with people you know in person and reviewing your settings regularly.
• On iPhone, Safety Check lets you review who has access to your information, including your location, and stop sharing with particular people or apps. It needs iOS 16 or later (Apple).
• Safety Check's Emergency Reset stops sharing with all people and apps at once, and its Quick Exit button closes the screen instantly while keeping the changes you made (Apple).
• Share live location with family on purpose, for a reason, rather than leaving it on with everyone by default. Consider posting photos after you have left a place, not while you are there.

Online blackmail: how it works

• Sextortion is a form of online blackmail in which criminals threaten to share private images unless the victim pays. The UK National Crime Agency says the images may be real or faked (NCA, 2024).
• Offenders are often organised crime groups abroad. They may contact young people from unfamiliar accounts or from hacked accounts of people they know, and their sole motivation is money (NCA).
• The NCA says many cases involve boys aged about 14 to 18, and blackmail can begin within an hour of first contact. Offenders may also falsely claim to have hacked you.
• Warning signs: a new contact who moves very fast, pushes to switch to a private app, or pressures you to share private photos. You can end any conversation at any time.

If anyone threatens you: do not pay, keep evidence, tell someone

• Do not pay and do not send anything else. The NCA says paying rarely ends the threats and demands often grow.
• Stop contact and block the person on every account they used (NCA).
• Keep the evidence: the NCA says to avoid deleting anything, including messages, images, phone numbers and bank details the offender sent.
• Do not save, forward or share any private image yourself, even as evidence. Leave that to the police.
• Tell a trusted adult straight away: a parent, relative, school counsellor or teacher. The NCA stresses that young people who are targeted are not to blame, and help is available.

Report it and get images removed

• In the UAE, report through the Ministry of Interior's eCrimes platform in the MOI UAE app, Dubai Police's eCrime website, Abu Dhabi Police's Aman service, the federal Public Prosecution's My Safe Society app, or your nearest police station. In danger, call 999 (UAE Government portal).
• Abu Dhabi Police's Aman service can be reached on 8002626 or by text to 2828 (Abu Dhabi Police, reported by Aletihad, July 2026). More UAE support numbers are in lesson ps-09.
• If you are under 18, you can ask a parent or trusted adult to report with you. Telling an adult is the fastest way to get the right help.
• NCMEC's free Take It Down service helps remove images taken when you were under 18 from participating platforms. It creates a digital fingerprint (hash) on your device; the image itself is not uploaded.
• The NCA also points young people to Childline and the Internet Watch Foundation's Report Remove tool (for the UK), and to reporting on the platform where the images were shared.