to refuse to have my photo on the intranet at work?

[wowfudge]

I've received an email today which says the company I work for is setting up an intranet page for HQ (where I work) which will have everyone's name, job role and contact details on it and we are to provide a suitable photo to go on there. The purpose is so that those people in the wider company who have dealings with us can put a face to a name. We've been given a deadline to comply with this.

I am really not comfortable with this as I don't really know why anyone I only deal with over the phone or by email gives a monkeys what I look like or what difference it makes. When employees from around the company visit here, they tend to seek out the people they deal with and introduce themselves. I also have concerns that someone could use my photo for some other purpose without my knowledge. Plus I am not confident about my looks at the moment and don't want my fat face on there for all to see.

What do you think MNetters? Does anyone in HR know what my rights are on this? I feel pressurised to do something I don't want to do and would like to know how to deal with it.

If you make a fuss I think you risk coming across as a trouble maker, and a bit odd/ paranoid.

Are there really no photos of you on the web anywhere? That would make you pretty unusual I would think.

Entirely up to you if you want to refuse though.

With regards to personal choice, companies compell us to do things we might prefer not to all the time. Most have a dress code for starters.

YANBU. Forget the security angle, I just wouldn't want it as I'm a very private person. Apart from MN I'm not on any social media site for this reason. Guaranteed there are no photos of me up on the web at all. Google my real name and nothing. Just the way I like it. Maybe it's my generation, I don't know. Just say no. What they going to do about it? Sack you?

I can understand the not wanting your pic up because you think you're a minger. I am the same.

But the paranoia is just risible.

Or is it just a supreme case of entitlement? I've been told to do something so I'm just not going to.

Other posters are right though. If you refuse, with no valid reason, then they will have you down as a) a whinger b) a paranoid weirdo yourself c) a PITA. And they'll probably talk about you far more than they would ever have talked about your mingy photo.

(OP not saying you are a minger, like, I'm sure you are lovely)

What security reason? It's an internal thing? Do all of you bleating about security sit at your desks with a bag over your heads refusing to let people look at you?

I think you're being perfectly reasonable and I'd be refusing to supply a photograph in your situation, regardless of whether it was a request or a dictat, the answer would be no. I don't have a facebook page or any other social media accounts, I'm not vain or unhappy with the way I look. I'm not worried about stalkers or that someone will 'do' something to my photo. I just don't want any photos of me on any intranet or internet site. At all.

I find it very interesting that some people (not just people on here, by any means) would think that was weird or ask you to explain what the problem is because they don't understand why you wouldn't want to do that. It's almost like a person wanting privacy is an alien concept.

Bleating about security ?

I had a member of staff harassed by a casual ex boyfriend who obtained details from her LinkedIn profile which gave her education and past employment history. She had no idea he was viewing it and it made her feel as if he had more knowledge about her than she did. He then contacted her professional connections and made inappropriate comments about her. We ended up having to escort her to her car at night as she was scared.

A professional colleague had to remove photographs from their website after his secretary was targeted by a client after she refused to put his calls through ( with good reason ). He identified her from her web photo - nice family practice solicitors, photos used to show friendly faces and encourage personal contact - and then located her Facebook page and used the information on there to send in the most twisted, sickening letters describing how he knew what she looked like, what she did at the weekend and how he knew where she lived. He didn't but that didn't console her much.

Yes, you could argue that people should be more careful of what they put online but you have very little control of what others put online about you and a sad pathetic git with some technical savvy and a couple of hours to spare online can easily mine data and use if for their own purposes.

I have a duty of care to those who work with and for me and it's simply not worth the risk.

I wouldn't want my photo on a company intranet either.

All very nasty little anecdotes but all totally irrelevant to our OP.

Bleating about security ?

Yes. I'm afraid it's got nothing to do with security, despite your examples which were based around Linked In & "the Web" - a public facing internet page - not the secure company internal Intranet.

As long as your company manages it's intranet properly then there should be no problems. Our company is over 4.5 thousand employees all over EU & Asia. We all have a picture on the "Org Chart" on the intranet & even on Outlook now, so when you get a mail you can see the face of the person that sent it.

It's designed to encourage openness and teamwork across the regions & seems to work well for us. Everyone enters into the spirit of it & there have been no issues in the 8 years the Org Chart has had pictures or the 12 months since Outlook has. I've never heard of anyone refusing to put a picture up - it's fairly casual so there are pictures of people in sunglasses & hats etc...

If someone want's to follow you, they will - whether you have or haven't got a picture next to your job description!!

Out of interest, would you be OK with having your photo on a staff notice board? (Here are the Head office team with job titles.)
I'm wondering if the issue is actually the photo or the intranet.

When I'm dealing with someone via phone or on a regular basis I'll probably google them to try and find a picture. I like to know who I'm talking to, it instantly helps me remember them and build a bit more of a rapport. The world we all work in is getting bigger and bigger, having pictures makes it a little bit smaller again. This is especially true if you work in a global company as you say you do.

And if I'm being honest if someone said, "I don't want my picture on the internal intranet", one of my first thoughts would be they're insecure about the way they look. For all your comments about security I think this is the real issue here, based on your OP. LinkedIn and Facebook are very different beasts to an internal site only other staff can access.

The OP has stated a preference for her photograph not to be used in her workplace. She hasn't asked her employers to put themselves out for her.

Even if you don't feel that you personally are at risk from such a scenario, she's uncomfortable with it and her view counts.

Every intranet has vulnerabilities and there are plenty of examples of these being exploited. It just takes a little more effort and determination.

How is it a breach of privacy for people in your company to know what you look like? Do you wear a full face covering of some sort while in the office to protect your privacy?

You know employers are entitled to ask you to do things, sometimes things you don't want to do. The request to have a photograph on an intranet or an external website is hardly an unusual or unreasonable one.

Janethegirl actually I am an employer I'd consider your refusal to comply with company policy, and a perfectly reasonable policy shared by 100s of thousands of businesses, was unreasonable.

It wouldn't in itself be enough to justify dismissal but it would certainly be noted in your file to see if there were any other routine aspects of how the business was run you felt didn't apply to you.

What would you do if someone was taking photos at the office Christmas lunch? Would you hide behind a napkin?

As a longterm names/faces dimwit I do find photos on the office intranet a godsend, so I'm team YABU.

OK. This is the INTRANET, it will only be visible to other people who work in your company, not clients or the general public. I'm guessing it will include your name, your WORK phone number and your WORK email address, not your bloody bra size.

There are no security risks, your worry that your colleagues could do something terrible to your photo or become stalkers in dirty raincoats shows a complete distrust for those you work with.

You talk about personal choice, but we all surrender a degree of personal choice when we agree to work for a company. Hell I'd love to exercise my personal choice to work a 2 hour day but I think I'd be out on my ass PDQ.

I do a mainly email/ phone based job and love it when I get to meet the people I talk to, as it makes it much easier to remember who's who. I think there are an awful lot of people whose memories work more visually.

In my team there are 4 of us whose names start with the same letter, by email everyone confuses all of us, on the phone people confuse the 3 of us who are female, when people have met us (or seen photos) they seem more able to keep track of who we are. I can see why companies would think photos are a good idea.

I think it hugely depends on the norms of your profession. I'm an academic and it would be dead weird not to have a publicly available picture plus publication history up on the internet, plus often full contact details and things like office hours or teaching timetables. People could totally stalk me if they wanted to.

No one ever does because I'm extremely average looking.

Seriously though it would weird where I work, and marking yourself out in a highly competitive environment won't do you any favours. Sounds like law is the same. If it won't harm your working relationships, though, knock yourself out.

I'd expect any employee who has expressed genuine concerns about a Company policy to be listened to, not disciplined.

The OP has stated that she has three concerns, one is just a general concern about why appearance (in her particular job) is of any importance, the second is that she has concerns that the information may be misused and the third is her own insecurity.

One and two should merit an employer allaying those concerns or demonstrating how they will address them. Not so much an employer can do about the third one granted.

And there are plenty of employers who would recognise her concerns as valid ones and act accordingly. Based on what the OP has posted I certainly wouldn't class her as a difficult or obstructive employee.

And if someone choose to disclose to an employer that they were particularly vulnerable for whatever reason, I would argue that the onus is on the employer to not ride roughshod over those vulnerabilities for the sake of a policy which isn't really critical to the Company's operations.

For clarification:

Internet - the World Wide Web. Accessible from any computer not located in North Korea. Number one delivery method of pornography and shady Mexican Viagra.

Intranet - Internal, shielded from public access, only accessible from within organisational computers. Probably not going to get much porn on it, unless you slip with the camera while taking your photo.

This is not accessible to anyone who doesn't work for the company. And to be perfectly honest, if I worked in a large company, I'd be less suspicious of someone using my photo for shady purposes, than I would be of someone who didn't have a photo on our internal directory. Putting a face to the name establishes humanity - you're less likely to go off on one with someone you can associate with as a person, rather than as just a string of words in an email.

From an organisational point of view, it shows disobedience in what is a relatively small detail. You've given your company your address, date of birth, full educational history, bank details, you trust them to keep you safe and secure in the workplace each and every day...

It's also worth mentioning that if anyone's ever uploaded a photo of you to Facebook at all, the data-harvesting machine there has a lifetime transferrable licence to use that photo in any way it wants, royalty-free. Instagram can bank that image and use it any way they want, too (and vice versa). The NSA will have a copy, too. Not to mention Google caches.

Has anyone ever taken a photo of you at a birthday party on a digital camera? Or a photo on a phone (in which case there'll be an auto-backup with the phone account, possibly a cloud storage service like Dropbox, and again, the NSA) with you in the background? A friend, colleague, family member, child?

Security of data is only as strong as the weakest point. Believe me, your company's internal directory is the LAST place that's likely to be a leak.

I asked whether I WBU to refuse - not whether my employers are unreasonable to tell me to do so. Arguably they are: I haven't signed up to doing this contractually, nor is it in the staff handbook or any of the policies on the intranet, but that is a different question.

Yes, I can understand some people would like to see photos of their colleagues at HQ, but equally a whole raft of other people couldn't care less. Businesses have managed without for far longer than we've had PCs and laptops, the internet and intranet.

There is nothing 'entitled' about not wanting to do this. I just would prefer the option of privacy.

Is there really an app called 'FaceTune'?!

With very little technical know-how it would be very easy for someone to copy an intranet image and disseminate it more widely on the internet; those of you pointing out the difference between the two must surely be aware of that?

I've given three reasons why I don't want to do it, in addition to which I don't like the way I've been told to do it with nothing in the email to say how the images will be protected or guaranteeing the company will limit how they use them.

We have until a week on Friday so I'll mull it over.

We have our photos on the intranet at work, and I find it useful because we have a lot of people toing and froing between our two offices, and it is helpful to know who I am speaking to on the phone, so that when they come to the office I work at I know who they are.

We have our own studio at work so we do our own photography.

As far as I know the only people who don't have photos up are recent starters who haven't had their photo taken yet. I don't know of anyone who has categorically refused to have their photo taken.

This is interesting reading about protecting online photographs.

wowfudge yes I have seen how easy it is for a picture on the intranet at work to be abused and distributed widely so I understand your reluctance

FaceTune will change your life