Schools urge parents to be vigilant in wake of phone kidnap threat scams in Hong Kong

Several schools have reminded parents to stay vigilant against phone scams that claim their children have been kidnapped, as international IT security experts warned of the dangers of uploading pictures of youngsters to instant messaging apps.

In the past month alone, Hong Kong police have received at least three reports of attempts to abduct children.

During one threat call to parents, the criminals were able to describe specific details of the children. Police are investigating how they managed to obtain such information.

"Can you imagine if a criminal tried to target one of those kids, he's now able to go to WhatsApp and download all this information. He knows exactly where that child is, what he or she looks like, because you're posting photos onto it," said Frank Yam, director of the international, non-profit Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA).

"Can you imagine how easy it is to gather information? Because WhatsApp is by no means secure," he added.

In the past fortnight, at least two schools favoured by middle-class parents - Good Hope Primary School and Victoria Shanghai Academy School - issued notices to parents after receiving reports of menacing phone scams.

No actual kidnappings have been reported so far, but messages have been circulating among parents that many others had received similar scam calls.