Relaxing photo consent at school

[LateToTheParty]

Hi I wondered if anyone who has initially not given photo consent at school, has later altered it?

We have two adopted DC, eldest in KS2 and youngest starting reception this year. Going through DC2's entry paperwork and there is a photo consent form to complete and return. We've always refused photo consent for DC1, and ourselves at school events. Both DC were placed with us under age 2, and we were told not to include photos in annual letterbox. We have met 2 members of birth family.

School have a policy of taking photos without removing anyone first, but if the photo is posted to their website or Facebook, they obscure individual faces if required. Photos used tend to be group shots and small and low resolution, and the children aren't identified by name. DC1 isn't the only one obscured in photos, but he's started questioning it, and knows he's different to most of his friends in this respect. I'm struggling to give him a coherent reason as to why we don't allow him, other than 'keeping him safe'.

Have discussed it with DH and we are minded to allow photo consent for both DCs, on the basis that enough time has passed that it's unlikely they would be recognised by birth family now. We also don't have any reason to think that birth family are actively seeking the children.

Would be interested in any views people have, and what they've done in the same circumstances.

Obscuring their faces is awful!!😮 It marks them out as different to everyone who looks at that picture! Wow.

Anyway, yes, we relaxed a bit. Partly because they've changed, partly because I didn't like them being removed. Our rule now is just no big close ups of their faces. (In a crowd is fine.)

So far we've not had to deal with anything like them doing something that would ordinarily merit them being in the paper in a small group.

I'm like tldr as have also relaxed a bit. Have said to school no individual close ups but have said fine to group shots and school are very good at not including any names.

It's a really tricky balance. My DD has also previously asked the 'why am I not in photos / school videos' question and the simple 'to keep you safe' answer is not really cutting it with her as she gets older.

I don't put any pics on social media and friends and family know to do the same. I tend to think along the same lines as you that enough time has passed and she is so physically different to when she first arrived as to be pretty much unrecognisable but I do still have a niggling fear.

Our son is not allowed in photos and we send photos to birth family.

Our son doesn't even know he is not allowed in group photos but he is allowed in his school group photo, which parents are told not to put on line.

It sounds very tricky and like this has somehow become an issue, but not sure how. My son is not remotely interested in looking at his school website so I am not sure how your kids have become aware that their photos are appearing but being blured out.

Is there a risk, can you get an update on whether or not there is a risk?

Lots of parents might not want their kids on school websites anyway.

If the school has a protected area of the website for parents only, a blog or whatever, I wonder if you could have photos put there?

I think you need to balance your child's natural desire not to be out of place with the fact that school websites are quite identifying in that they locate the child in a school, as opposed to you just posting pics on an anonymous blog etc.

"School have a policy of taking photos without removing anyone first, but if the photo is posted to their website or Facebook, they obscure individual faces if required." Personally, I would challenge this, they should not be doing this, they should use large scale photos where it is not possible to make out kids or smaller shots of children who have agreed to be available for this.

This policy is not child centered and sounds rather self centered of the school.

Our son is not allowed in school photos on social media/school website... I mean

"...he is allowed in his school group class photo, which parents are told not to put on line.

Sorry, realized that did not make a lot of sense!

If bio family is a real risk, be wary of assuming that kids changing as they get older will protect them against being recognised. There was a case last year in South Africa where a teenager who had been stolen as a baby was recognised by her family as she looks just like her younger sister. Having said that, in a group photo it's not that easy to pick out facial features anyway.

The school do their absolute best to forbid photo sharing online - but some parents do it anyway, as friends of mine within school flag up to me. I can't stop them doing that, because even if I explained very slowly WHY it is so dangerous (which I don't want to spell out because it spoils my DC's confidentiality), they may still prioritise their right to do it.

So I choose to keep going with a zero-photo rule instead. Formal shots the DC are delighted to avoid. Things like performances require a lot more adjustment and planning, and sometimes a bit of strategic scheduling of medical appointments etc so the public performance is missed but they get to join in the within-school one.

What do you do about other parents, though? An acquaintance of mine has just plastered Facebook with photos of her kids' school performance and I was a bit thinking about any potential adoptees in the photo.

Sorry, that might be a hijack. Sorry.

We send photos to BF, and have had a strict non photos online rule for the DDs. The thing is, our eldest is the spitting image of her BM. So if a photo was seen in a paper or online it would be obvious.

However as time goes on we do feel more relaxed as if their location were known the issues would be much less than when they were younger.

I also think obscuring faces is terrible. Most schools seem to manage quite happily just finding shots not including certain children. Makes it far less obvious.

I was initially a no photos allowed parent, however seeing a big black star plastered over my child's face on the school website and them not being able to look through and show me what they've been up to made me change my mind this year.

I spoke to the school and agreed that photos published with no names on school website/newsletters are fine. I have asked that my children are not included in any pictures that are for newspaper or have names included. Has worked well for us so far.

We recently changed the permissions for our two. The younger one was starting to get upset that she couldn't be in the photographs and we feel that the chances of them being found by a member of their birth family was pretty slim. It's made life so much easier for us as well. Previously school would be on the phone every time they wanted to take a photo or put a message in the local paper.