to think parents videoing school assemblies and posting the video on facebook is wrong

[mamabanana]

Just noticed a post from a friend on facebook with a video link to a class assembly. I honestly don't think the person posting has thought through their actions, but surely it is against most school policies? If the school record something, they have to get every parent to sign to say they agree to their child being videoed. I have no problem with parents videoing their children to watch back, but posting it on social media????

What do you think and what would you do? Am I overreacting? I need a second opinion before I speak to friend or even the school about it.

And yes, of course I can only talk to them at specific times - America and the UK are different time zones, my Aunt works, I have to look after the DC's.

For those who are happy to post THEIR CHILDREN'S pictures on any social media go for it. But please DO NOT TAKE A PICTURE/VIDEO OF A CHILD WHO ISN'T YOURS! Is that too difficult for a grown person to understand???

An email is as instant as a FB update. A blog or Flickr account is also updated pretty much straightaway, and people can get email prompts when there is new activity on a blog so they know that the school assembly video is up there to see. FB is really not the only way to communicate with your family. And it's still fine when it's a single shot of your DC, or DC with their friends if you have checked if their parents have said it's fine. It's including other children in your footage and photos (and i don't mean the back of their head, or their elbow etc, just when you can tell who it is) that's not OK on social media

Yes, but you can email them today, and talk to them tomorrow, can't you?

Facebook isn't essential you know. Generations of people survived perfectly well by taking a photograph, getting it developed, putting it into an envelop and posting it.

Of course it isn't a problem if there are no children in the background.

Or if you have personally checked with every other parent if they mind, which would be easy to do in a small class - talk to the parents. Don't just automatically dismiss them as loons if they have a genuine reason to not want you to do it.

I'm never going to stop posting videos of my DC's on fb, but I take on board your concerns and can try to crop the photo's, and find some way if disguising other people's DC's in the background.

Surely nobody can have an issue with that?

I will take on board what has been said, but my videos of my DC's will STILL be shared on fb, even if I have to disguise the identity of DC's in the background. Fb is what works for my family.

Couthy, yes, cropping or blurring so that no one could identify the other children would be fine, as long as you can "lock" it so that it can't be undone by other viewers (not a technical expert, so sorry can't advise how to either blur or prevent others unblurring)

Well that's fine then

There is an adoptive parent on here who is very open about the fact that her son's birth mother stalks him on Facebook by looking at the Facebook pages of anyone she can find who has children in the school. She then downloads those photographs (her birth son and all the other children in the picture) and puts them on her extraordinarily inappropriate Facebook page (alongside pornography and some very dodgy stuff).

So bear that in mind if you haven't checked the identity of all the children in the photograph. Your children could end up on sites you don't want them on too.

I take on board your concerns and can try to crop the photo's, and find some way if disguising other people's DC's in the background

i think that is perfect, if the other children are blurred out it means they can not been seen.

Couthy, really, emailing the picture would be much, much more simple than all this photoshopping and cropping and blurring malarkey! If you're technologically competent enough to photoshop/edit from your phone then you're technologically competent enough to email it.

People underestimate the power of FB & other social media .

As said upthread once the photo or video is on the FB page IT IS THEIRS

You can delete it from your page but they still have the images & can & will use them for advertising. My profile pic popped up on an advert shortly after I first went on it, hence I now use only that one, or other pics from t'internet.

It's a useful communication tool but as for privacy .....nope.

(& I speak as one who has privacy so tight I tick nothing & no-one finds me on search)

I agree - it shouldn't be on FB, not if it shows other people's children, not without their permission.

As a school we get permission at the start of the year to allow children to be in photographs or videos. If a parent declines then that child never appears on anything we use for outside of school - adverts, school website, etc. They are still allowed to be photographed/videod for within school use.

I maintain our school year group pages and do add videos and the site is not password protected - but there is no school name or location on the site, no back link to the school (although can access them from the school main website), no childrens names.

We actually currently have no children we cannot have on our sites but only because of the way it is set up.

I don't know how you would crop or blur a video- surely you'd have to it frame-by-frame? It is relatively simple on a still photo, but I don't think the iPhone app lets you blur, just crop.

Again, rubbish.

Taken from FB's data policy pages, TODAY;

While you are allowing us to use the information we receive about you, you always own all of your information. Your trust is important to us, which is why we don't share information we receive about you with others

and
When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook. It typically takes about one month to delete an account, but some information may remain in backup copies and logs for up to 90 days. You should only delete your account if you are sure you never want to reactivate it.

You always own your pictures, FB does not. When you delete them, there are no copies kept.
You need to understand what you are talking about before you advise others, wrongly.

I'm usually very pro personal choice regarding posting pics of people on facebook, I'd post a photo of my dc at tge park even if there were kids in the background accidentally.

I can really sympathise with the issues of posting a school play pic/video because it is very identifiable and it is taken on the schools premises. I wouldn't post a school video.

Couthymow you are coming across as fairly unhinged, I'm don't think anyone is even that interested in a video of someone else's kid singing badly, you need to share videos of you children is being portrayed by you as some kind of vital birth right.

I've been into school as I was passing at lunchtime. Luckily, the head was in the office at the time and he was very grateful for being informed and confirmed it is a serious child safeguarding issue. They are sending a letter out ASAP to remind parents not to upload videos/images onto social media sites and explaining why. Thanks for all your input - I really hope it makes some people think more about safeguarding issues

GoSakura, what happens when you have deleted your account to all the messages you have sent to people and all the photographs you have shared?

Do they all get deleted when you delete your account?

I thought the pictures would stay on other people's pages, and would therefore only be as secure as their security settings, not yours.

GoSaku - but do you agree that if you post a photo or video on Facebook and tag people in it, then the audience is not just limited to your friends? And not through anything particularly sinister, it's just how Facebook works?

Oh, and if you delete your half of a private conversation, have you only deleted it from your site, or have you also deleted it from the person you "talked to"? Because if they still have it, it isn't really deleted is it?

Private messages remain, without your name or photo attached, just the bare message. Shared photos are deleted, wall messages disappear. You are the owner and they disappear with you.

If you post a photo or video and CHOOSE to tag people, thereby CHOOSING to share with others and letting them override your security settings, that is up to YOU, not FB. There is no need to do so, and you can easily prevent others from tagging you in their photos or tagging themselves in yours. You can also easily prevent anyone sharing your photos or videos.

If I put a picture on FB, 30 people can see it (unless I have restricted it further). None of their friends can, they can't share it on their walls, they can't download it.
This is not public. Unless you CHOOSE to make your media public, it isn't.

I know what I am talking about, this is my job.

GoSakura - can I ask you as a FB expert (which I'm not by any means) how you set a photo or video so that it can't be "shared" by any of your friends please. I am happy for the people I choose to see my photos but not all of their friends as well and I can't work out how to restrict this.

Couthy - I'm rather lost for words at your toatlly selfish attitude. I only hope that you are lucky enough never to put any of the other children in any kind of difficulty or danger. I also hope that my children and yours are never at the same school.

I agree with Go - if you are careful with Facebook then it doesnt have to mean that all your photos are available to all and sundry. Although tagging friends in them does mean that they are seen by their friends etc which creates other issues.

However, I still dont think that this means that you can go around putting photos containing other people's kids on your profile. I would have thought that it would be common sense and good manners to ask permission before doing so. However, this thread has proved to me that some people are lacking in both of these things.

Gosaku - that's fair enough - it's your job so you understand. The bulk of people out there have no idea about privacy settings. The video I mentioned to start this thread off has been tagged and shared. Unless you can be sure everyone understands facebook privacy settings inside and out, they should not be posting school videos at all.

That's good to know, GoSakuramachi.

dd never tags photos, she used to ask people not to tag her and at one point had her setting set so they couldn't (and then for some reason the privacy setting changed and for a while she could).

I'm seriously considering making my children delete their entire teenage facebook history, and start again with a new email address when they get to 18. I'm not sure they will want it all there forever (I certainly don't).

Couthy - yes cropping or blurring the photos would be acceptable as then no one would be able to identify anyone else's children. However, that all seems like a lot of hard work when you could just as easily send a photo/video instantly at the click of a button as a private email.

If you have your photo/video set to friends only (not friends of friends, which is what most people have) then no matter who clicks share, it won't be visible to someone who is not already friends with you.

Example, you put up a pic.
your Friend, A, clicks share.
Her friend B (not friends with you) sees "A has shared a photo" but instead of the pic is a message that the content is not available to them.
Friend C, who is both your friend and A's friend, can see it on both your wall and her wall, but only because they are both on your friends list.