The action of proud parents in uploading personal pictures of their children on social media can be dangerous, according to a psychology expert.

Dr Meriam Omar Din said this was because by doing so, the children would be exposed to cyber crimes, or even becoming a target of paedophiles.

"Some of these parents are simply naive and they love their children so much to the extent of wanting to share everything with the world. They don't realise the risks for their children's pictures to be over-exposed in the social media," she told Bernama today.

Dr Meriam said this when asked to comment about the pictures of the children of local celebrities, namely Harith Iskander Musa, Erra Fazira and Tomok, which were reported to have been featured on a porn website last week.

She said paedophilia, or the condition of being sexually attracted to children, had becoming quite rampant and more and more paedophiles were using the internet to prey on children.

"Paedophiles who use the pictures for their immoral activities are difficult to be detected. They have been around for quite a while, but even their families didn't know their secrets," she said.