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Parenting

06th Jul 2023

Is it okay for someone else to post pictures of your child without telling you?

Ellen Fitzpatrick

When it comes to posting pictures of children online, parents often differ in what they believe is right for their child.

For some, they are happy to post as much as they like on social media, others tend to keep their children’s faces away from the camera as much as possible while others refuse to post pictures entirely.

Whatever you decide to do when it comes to sharing images of your own children online, it’s your decision – but what about when others do it?

Family and friends have been known to share images of children online and while they may only have good intentions doing so, many parents are not okay with this.

Taking to Reddit, one parent asked their peers what their take on the topic was, and the outcome was interesting.

The parent asked: “What’s your opinion on people posting pictures of your children without telling you? Do you say something? Does it bother you? Do you think that pictures they took or you sent are “fair game”?”

One parent responded: “No one is allowed to post or send pictures of my child. No picture associated with her name is online. If someone did, i would report and have them taken down and the poster would not see my child again.

“We take her right to privacy very seriously. Any post I make mentioning her connected to my real name is friends locked and will be made private when she is old enough to be online. Her name is never used online.”

While another said: “I don’t monitor and it doesn’t bother me. When people post pictures that include my child, the posts have never included his or her name. The posts are usually about their own child and my child is just in a group shot.

“My kids are now 4, 10 and 12 and the choice is mostly out of my hands anyway for the older two since they have so many life activities on their own.”

While there is no law in place that states you cannot take a picture of a child in a public space, once you are in a private setting you require the consent of the parents to allow for any picture of their child to be taken, The Arts Council states.

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