January 5th, 2012
A piece on The Next Web, Why Facebook Can’t Do Anything About Other People Sharing Photos of Your Children, by Nancy Messieh rekindled my interest in this topic. We moms are curious to know what YOU think. Let’s discuss this.
Do you post photos of YOUR children online?
Do you post photos of OTHER children online and tag them or their parent(s)?
What is YOUR policy for online photo sharing or publishing with children?
Ok, so you’re at a friend’s house and they pull out a photo album — remember those things — he kind with the static cling pages with photographs stuck to them? Imagine yourself as you sit at a table and flip through this photo album with a group of friends, family, their friends who are basically strangers to you. There are photos of kids at a birthday party which means you’ll likely see other people’s kids in that photo you may or may not recognize. Think back, if you can, to a time before social networking. Did you ask other parents’ permission before whipping out the polaroid and snapping photos of your little one blowing out the candles while surrounded by their friends? How is this the SAME as what we now do on Facebook? How is this DIFFERENT? How do you define “publish” versus just “sharing” photos online?
I know people are sensitive to this issue so I make it my personal policy to ask other parents before I start snapping pictures of MY kids and their friends when there are OTHER kids around in a close range. When I’m at the zoo, a public place, do I first run around and ask all the people who might be caught in the background if I have their permission to take their photo and share it on Facebook? um. No. I’m not that crazy. However, if my child is doing something cute where another child will end up being a focal point, I DO ask the parent if they mind and if it’s ok if the photos end up online. So far I have never had anyone say no, but if they did, then I would respect their feelings and compose my shots to exclude that child or wait until my child is more isolated. After all, I shouldn’t have to relinquish MY right to photograph my own child, right?
Personally, I get a bit offended when people automatically assume that because I’m a blogger and regularly use online social networking, that I publish or share every single detail of every social encounter or that I regularly blab about other people’s business. Does this ever happen to you? People neglect to think about how my profession as an IT Technician requires me to be entrusted with seeing and securing extremely private information on a regular basis. Despite how much I may personally share online about my own children, I’m actually a very private person and an advocate for managing your online identity and reputation. There are many decisions parents need to make on child’s behalf because they are too young to do so on their own.
Whether or not to publish or share photos of your child online can be as controversial as whether or not to circumcise. There are benefits and consequences on both sides of these debates.
It’s a tough call, I know. It’s always something of a debate when it comes to developing web content for educational institutions. Most schools now require parents to sign a release form when registering a student for school. The signed form is a requirement, however the consent on that form is only requested, not required. If you’re a school administrator and you get those signed forms, what happens next? For example, out of 300 forms signed releasing consent, you get 25 that deny permission. What do you do with those 25 kids when it comes time to photograph classmates doing cool stuff for the school website? Will they feel alienated if they are pulled aside when photos are being taken? How do you let the other parents know which specific kids are not allowed to be photographed in a time and place when so many parents now have camera phones with them? I find it hard to believe that ALL parents take this in to consideration when they’re at a public event snapping photos of their kids playing with other kids and uploading those pics online at will.
