To not let my kids appear on school social media?

And I’m absolutely against other people making parental choices for others. It’s up to individual parents as it should be.

Well you have constantly quoted and referenced me, my question was what benefit is there to a child’s photo being shared online and your response was you like looking at old photos with your child?

I can’t see anyone who has said they never allow anyone to ever take photos of their child, which comment are you specifically referring to?

The conversation has quite clearly been about photos being shared by schools publicly online.

I don’t consent for them to be on SM. There’s an internal system where we can see photos but this is for parents only. I have consented to this. Some have not.

you do what is safe and acceptable for you. It’s a shame you miss the photos though so maybe ask the school if there’s another way you can see? Maybe at parents eve?

You made your decision and it’s your choice to double down on it, that doesn’t however mean there is any benefit to a child’s image being shared on social media
You focus on the lack of benefits, I focus on the lack of risk.

As for consent, where do you start? All those mum's who insist on their kids getting antibiotics at every childhood infection they get without their consent will do much more damage than allowing their pictures to be taken.

Parents make thousand of decisions on behalf of their kids until their adulthood without consent. That's what being a parent is all about!

For me, it’s more about privacy overall. There are people from my past, who come in and back out of my life, who are not perverts or anything nefarious, but I like to keep the shutters down on my life. My friends and family are all welcome in my home, to be around my children, but I like to keep my privacy intact. And don’t get me started on grandparents who don’t understand privacy settings on social media, who have a whole album of public profile photos of their grandchildren and have no idea they need change their settings otherwise anyone can have a good old look.

It’s very easy to have family photos of your children, their life, their birthday parties, events, achievements, school plays all without it playing out on the internet for everyone to see
Again, I'm responding to the no pictures clan.

They consider that any picture is a risk of exposure online.

Parents take pictures of their kids birthday party on their Facebook, Grandma sees them and share, etc...

I can see this is lovely, but I wonder how possible it would be to scroll back to the insta feed from the school for this year in ten years time or so to show DC? Or do you mean you screenshot them and print them out?
I'm talking about pictures in general. I would agree that posting on Instagram might be a step too far in the need to do.

My comments relates to mum's who don't want their kids to feature in any school photographs.

You do not have to allow your children to be shared online in order to look back on their life and achievements, funnily enough we have all looked back on our childhoods up until now without the internet. This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

It’s very easy to have family photos of your children, their life, their birthday parties, events, achievements, school plays all without it playing out on the internet for everyone to see.

I think deep down you probably recognise that the tide has changed, we now have so much more information on not only the dangers of the internet but the question around consent and sharing children online is when they can’t understand the concept or consent to it. You made your decision and it’s your choice to double down on it, that doesn’t however mean there is any benefit to a child’s image being shared on social media.

Staying at home forever feels like it has more impact on their lives than missing out on nice photos of them at school, but maybe I am wrong
That is obvious. The point again, is that parents have a massive over-inflated view of the risk.

People do go out and take risks because it's necessary as part of normal life, yet they rarely consider the level of risk of doing so, even though it significantly higher.

Yet some focus their mind on what is a completely unlikely risk.

I explained what an amazing time I had once with my son looking at old school pictures l. He absolutely loved these and thanked me for having kept them. He looked at the friends he had forgotten about, reminiscing about them, good times they had together. Old teachers and PAs. Encouraged to try to look for some of them online etc...

Not a change your life moment, but still a very special moment that was worth the almost non existent risk to him of having these pictures taken.

Nope, I can see countless references to the beach, still can’t see a single benefit to allowing a school, or even a parent sharing a 7 year old online? Feel free to repeat said benefit you’re so insistent on.

Everything with little risk, let Ali e almost négligeable risk seems to be taken away from kids nowadays. On their own, these things are not going any harm, but the moment you add it all up, it become questionable.

I can see these kids communicating on what will be the equivalent of MN forums in 20 years time criticizing their parents for leaving them totally risk adverse in their adult life.

I did already! Not a massive benefit, but a benefit that is more significant than the minimalist almost non existent risk of harm from their school picture being exploited.

Please tell me all the benefits to a 7 year old being publicly shared online?

Parents mitigate risk where they can with things in place to care for their child, like staying closer to younger children, keeping them in sight. By contrast there are risks to sharing children online but no benefit to them either.
It’s a stupid comparison lacking in reasoning and understanding
Oh the irony! Don't you understand that the risk of harm to your children having their far away picture taken at school and put on the school website is so minimal, it hardly exists!

Mitigating risk is recognising the likelihood of the risk in the first place!

Not that particular poster but hopefully to answer your rather daft question of course parents who don't want their children's photos on open school social media accounts are worried about anything nefarious happening to any images of their child.

Naturally I assume we all would want to safeguard our children from their images ending up in the hands of people using them in such a way. However that doesn't mean we lock them up and never take them to the beach or other places where they of course might be photographed but we're also not just blindly posting the photos for someone to use.

I'm sure you completely understood that point already though.

You’ve repeated the same idiotic question over and over like a puppet.

There is always a risk of exposing your children to things or people when in public, but most people who are not mentally ill weight up the risks and still take their child out to places like the park or beach as there is a direct benefit to them being in new places, being outside, experiencing different things, going swimming, playing with friends etc. Parents mitigate risk where they can with things in place to care for their child, like staying closer to younger children, keeping them in sight. By contrast there are risks to sharing children online but no benefit to them either.
It’s a stupid comparison lacking in reasoning and understanding.

Loitering around a beach or park and taking pictures of strangers children is pretty unappealing and risky. How much easier just to go onto a schools website and take their pictures without having to move from your desk. Plus you can do so from anywhere in the world
I disagree. Taking pictures of kids on the beach is very easy. You pretend to take a pic of your friend with the children in the background, and children in swimming suits is more more sellable than kids in school uniform.

People are attacking me because it highlights the lack of common sense of parents who focus on school pictures exclusively.

No part into this, my kids have long left school.

It’s bizarre how obsessed you are with whether other people choose not to have their child shared online
It's interesting how you are diverting the question when it suits.

But surely someone can photograph my child in public and do the same thing?

It’s fine to take videos and photos. Just don’t post them publicly.

How do they manage that when everyone has a phone these days? I remember officiating at an athletics event a few years ago where photography was banned but you still had the entitled yummy mummies filming the kids (and getting in the way of the timekeepers) and getting very stroppy when told to stop. In fact I had to tell one that if she didn't move, I was going to disqualify her child from the competition!

I don't think schools would be blackmailed to prevent the release because they wouldn't try to prevent the release - how?. They and the parents would report it to the police.

There are more and more laws coming in to combat this but every time there's a new law there's a new bit of tech.

I think school social media feeds should show groups of kids with no obvious faces showing to prevent misuse.