Over 75% of parents share their kids' data on social media – this is called “sharenting”. Sharenting is a social media problem. But as Europe’s biggest telecommunication provider, Deutsche Telekom knew that social media had to be part of the solution to change parents’ online behavior. So we created the ultimate influencer for parents – a grown-up version of a child called “Ella”, created with AI technology. Ella spoke directly to all parents on social media, sending an urgent call to #ShareWithCare.With the help of thousands of parenting influencers her video became a viral hit on social media reaching millions

With the rise of AI and deepfake technology, abusing personal data has never been easier. Turning social media into a treasure trove of data which criminals can exploit in more ways than ever.

Yet, 75% of parents share their kids' data on social media – this is called Sharenting - and it exposes children to identity theft, scamming, harassment and even child pornography.

To make matters worse, 2 out of 3 parents have followers and social media connections they’ve never met, making it easy for criminals to infiltrate private online circles.

With the digital privacy of a whole generation at risk, Germany’s leading telco brand needed to take action to make parents reconsider their online sharing behavior and instead start to #sharewithcare.

Most people share pictures of their children. It’s seen as a harmless, normal online behavior. After all social media exists to share one’s life with others, and there is nothing more important for parents than their children.

The issue is that, for criminals, those simple pictures are data, which can be compiled and later manipulated and exploited.

And even though lawmakers around the world are slowly turning their attention to this matter, the mass audience is mostly still oblivious to the dangers of carelessly sharing children’s pictures online.

So far, the public debate in Germany mainly focuses on the topic of “child labor”, with the public urging content creators to stop using their children in social media videos but ignoring the future and present dangers which anonymous parents expose their children to just by sharing “simple” photos.

So, during Europe’s summer holiday season, when traditionally parents flood social media with beach photos of their children, we launched Ella’s powerful message to make parents think twice before pressing the “share” button.

Using the latest Al technology on a single photograph, we created the virtually aged version of a 9-year-old girl: Ella. The ultimate influencer for parents.

In our film, she confronts her parents – and by extension parents worldwide – with the consequences of sharing kids' data online, sending a gut-wrenching warning from the future. This way, our film became both a literal demonstration of AI manipulation capabilities and an emotional plea for the online safety of all children.

As part of the campaign, we also created a solution to the problem: a social media filter pixelating children’s faces, empowering parents to #ShareWithCare and easily protect their children’s privacy.

Across all platforms, parenting content is immensely popular – so if we wanted to convince parents to change their sharing behavior on social media, we would need a social-first approach as well as the endorsement of parenting influencers.

That’s why we relied on parents’ willingness to share emotional content, and created a gut-wrenching film with a testimonial no parent could ignore: a child in need.

“A Message from Ella” became the pillar of our campaign, acting as the entry point into an educational journey about data security and online safety, which lead to real behavioral change.

Since the biggest influencer of any parent is their own child, we

created Ella, an AI-generated daughter, who became the most influential voice in the social media space on the topic of online safety for children.

Ella’s video message, which directly addressed parents with a caring and loving tone, looking straight at the camera, was crafted in a way that made every parent who watched it feel like Ella’s words were those of their own child.

Making Ella’s message resonate deeply in the hearts of parents, turning it into a viral social media hit, shared by parenting influencers worldwide.

But that was just the beginning. The true transformation came when Telekom launched its social media filter that used facial recognition technology to automatically blur any child's face in a picture, allowing parents to easily #ShareWithCare, turning the conversation into action.

Ella’s message became a viral hit, reaching 71 countries with over 51 million views and 2.9 billion impressions, sparking the public’s demand for data privacy and security information, which led to a record of over 184.000 visits to the German campaign landing page since its launch on 3rd of July 2023.

Thousands of social media comments indicate behavioral change, confirmed in a pre/post-exposure survey where 2 out of 3 parents stated they changed their opinion on “sharenting” and 55% of parents, who previously shared their children's images, said they would conceal their identity in the future.

62% of non-customer parents affirmed that Telekom’s data safety and virtual privacy commitment will make them consider the company as a telecommunications provider in the future.

Furthermore, Ella’s message is now a educational tool used by European police agencies, such as the Scotland police and the state police of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hessen, Germany.