Nativity and child protection issue

[DrMum83]

AIBU?

An acquaintance on Facebook (girl I went to primary school with) has posted a video of her child in the school nativity play. Her mother (the GM) has then shared it on her Facebook. The acquaintance commented that 'I know some people are against videos of children but it's largely focused on DS and its a sad world we live in if I can't do that'.

One of her friends commented that there are child protection issues surrounding this and that at her daughter's school, they are specifically requested to not video the play or post on social media photos of other kids. My acquaintance retorted with 'the headmaster announced at the beginning of the play that video taking is allowed as long as no parents present object'

This rang alarm bells for me.

A) as part of my role at work, I am involved with safeguarding children. Children can be found on fb and hunted down by parents when in care and this can be disastrous.
B) 'no parents present object' what about the parents not present? And what about those sharing the video forward (as in this case)?

I have managed to find the name of school and have typed a letter to headmaster. He may think I'm an interfering busybody but would I be unreasonable to send it?!

Thoughts?

juno

It's quite simple.

Someone who isn't allowed to have contact with their children is trawling Facebook for hints. Someone they know (not well as loads of people have people on their FB that they don't really know) shares this video. They then look at the person who posted it, where they live is on their profile. at some point they have mentioned the school. Or are friends with another parent who has mentioned it.

It has happened. It does happen.

Juno - fairly easily. A simple way is that parent writes 'St Marks School Nativity' on the photo. Bit of hunting through their profile, and they've not been massively careful with privacy settings, shows they like, say, Chester Zoo and a cafe in Chester, so chances are that's near where they are. So now you are looking for St Marks near Chester.... Wouldn't take long.
Or a search of their other photos shows their kid in uniform with an identifiable logo with school name.
Or you google the name of the person who posted the original photo and there's three of them on the electoral register but it doesn't take too long to work out which one would be the right age to have a kid in primary school, and although you aren't really interested in that person, you now know where they live and that they have a child in the same class as a child you are VERY interested in....

I just can't see it happening.

So, I split from my partner. I move to a far distant place. I delete myself from facebook.
Presumably, in this far distant place, I have no acquaintances in common with ex.
A new acquaintance posts a video of a nativity play with their child and mine.
How in hell, could my ex, have access to my new acquaintance's profile, unless he already knew where I now lived and who my new acquaintences are?

Unless, you don't move far away. You don't delete facebook. In which case, you're being an idiot anyway?

Nope. Can't see it happening. Over-reaction.

It is perfectly possible to share a video or photo with grandparents without sharing it on Facebook.

When I was on FB I would often be surprised at the people who knew each other.

People meet online and befriend all sorts of people, some they know, some they don't. It's a very small world these days.

It is absolutely not an over reaction to think that it could happen.

It is absolutely not an over reaction to think that it could happen.

No, particularly if somebody had made it their business to track somebody else down.

Thankfully never been in this situation juno, I wonder how easy it is for someone to just pack up and move and lose all connections with the past? Think you're a tad naive to believe this is possible. Let's not forget facial recognition software either.

It's THIS easy

Children in care haven't usually moved far away though Juno.

When I was a nursery nurse we had an absolute blanket ban on photography and videos during performances. Parents were told that they would be provided with pictures of their child afterwards taken by staff no group shots of children (even if all parents were present and consented). Some parents complained, it was explained to them about safeguarding. Once a photo is on social media it's in the public domain. It's easier to not have photos, than to have them and not knowing what's being done with them.

It can be very easy to happen across someone or something on the Internet. In terms of finding people by accident, as an example, my Dh's estranged df went to a tattoo artist in a completely different country to where my Dh was born, we'd never lived there, and didn't know anyone there, the tattoo artist posted a photo of the tattoo he did which included fil's face, it was a good piece of artwork and was shared by another tattoo artist who is our friend, I saw the photo whilst looking on a different social media site, recognised the face (I've never met fil, only decided it was interesting because he looks like dh) did a bit of research (traced the photo back to the original site) and found out it was fil from the name there. I don't want to meet fil, Dh has no interest in meeting him again, but i was able to find out the area where he lived, where he worked, and access pictures and information of brothers and sisters that Dh has never met. And I'm no techie, it can be that easy.

Wow Starky - just goes to show what a small world we live in.

It blew my mind for a little while DrMum and showed me just how easy and dangerous it can be. I'm not on any social media, neither is Dh, we don't have accounts, but can still access all the information there.

You did the right thing to flag this up with the school. Some people forget that just because their child isn't at risk that the little one in row three and slightly to the left might be.

I'm not going to go into detail about ho people find other people online. I don't know who the fuck is reading this thread, and I don't want to help them out by doing that.

I'd suggest others are circumspect also in what they post.

Nope. Can't see it happening. Over-reaction.

total rubbish.

It already has happened.

Besides which, these families shouldn't have to live in fear.

WTF has it to do with you? If there were any kids at the school it might be an issue for he would have said filming wasn't allowed.
What do you think thye photo consent form is for , you plonker

And the award for completely missing the point goes to Brioche

Child protection is everybody's responsibility. Would you ignore your next door neighbor beating the living daylights out of her kid?!

Filming a play for private viewing is a million miles away from posting online where the audience could potentially reach millions.
I suggest you read the thread thus far, there are plenty of examples where filming and subsequent posting on social media has caused distressing and massive problems.

I was wondering whether Brioche had read any of the thread. It kind of proves the point as to why it probably is best to ban filming.

brioche has issues with schools and child protection procedure

We have letters which go out to all parents when a child starts the school. It asks parents to sign regarding whether they give permission for children to be photographed/filmed for various reasons.

If any child in the year group cannot be photographed or filmed, then parents are not allowed to take their own at all. If no one has said their child cannot be photographed we do allow it (to an extent - in the bigger shows we ask parents to be considerate due to flashes, holding cameras up, etc.) but we do remind parents to be careful with their use of social media if photographs include other children.

However, we always make sure school take photos and we do make those available (having ensured that the named children are not on them first.) When taking shots of the whole cast we will remove those named children, or blur their faces out on the shot - I prefer the latter as the blurred face on a photo looks a bit odd.

We also give parents time at the end of the assembly/show to speak to their child and take individual shots or group shots with friends, making sure the named children are not included (apart from by their own family.)

I know it is sad for the children involved, but if it is so risky that a parent/other person could find them through social media or via a school play, then perhaps they shouldn't be in the school play rather than stop everyone filming or photographing anything public? It isn't nice to those children but it does seem sad for everyone else that they can't film for this very specific reason which affects a tiny minority. I do think it would be better to advise ahead of time for the other parents though that the play will be filmed rather than on the night.

Due to people with your viewpoint some of my most at risk foster children have not been able to take part in school plays, the standard class photographs, harvest festivals, Chirstmas Carol concerts, anything in the press or newletters about their achievements, and sports days. They have suffered so much, and are deperately trying to fit in and unfortunately this has made them stand out as even more different. Perhaps we should just keep the most vulnerable out of sight at all times, in case we infringed on other parent's rights to take videos and photos whenever they wished.

However once children leave the completely safe haven of primary school and enter into the realms of secondary the taking and distributing of pictures becomes completely impossible to control.

To an extent. But some schools ban mobile phones. If a kid was at serious risk, the school could do so even if they had not done so previously. What the kids do outside school is their business. And I guess if a child was at serious risk, their parents/guardians would take steps to ensure their friends didn't take photos of them and circulate them via social media.

So oddity what you are saying is that those children that have a CP/adopted etc that shouldn't be filmed should not be part a production. This is so that every other child, who can be can be filmed by there parents etc and whose images can be shared on social media can be....because their parents needs far out way everyone else's? FFS, what planet are you on. So these children who are to be protected, whose family life or early life history makes them different to other children, should to be made to feel even more different because they should not participate.

Thank you, PhoenixReisling, it helps enormously when somebody outside the area of child protection understands what children such as many of my foster children have to go through for their own safety. So on behalf of them, thank you for understanding they suffer SO much already, and how being able to participate fully in school life is so often not possible because of other parents wish to take photos and take videos of their own children.

By secondary school a lot of children are less at risk purely from the perspective of their being older, more savvy, less likely to believe a stranger who says 'get into my car', more aware of their situation and the risks that might apply to them, and basically less of a target to an estranged parent. And you can talk to them about online safety and protecting themselves with some chance that they might comply.

Another school I know of does a professional (or semi-pro) recording of many of its special events, and then offers them to parents to purchase, so that they can watch the event in their homes but are perhaps fairly unlikely to make a digital copy.

This seems like a reasonable compromise to me, given the potentially small numbers who would bother to faff about uploading something from a DVD to the internet (and maybe the recording doesn't permit this, not sure how it works).

No oddity. Parents should follow rules rather than children being excluded. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the time comes when schools are forced to forbid parents to attend plays assemblies ect as tgey can't behave and follow orders which are there to safe guard children. They'll just send film it and send the DVD home. So parents and carers are shooting them selves in the foot. Oh and it goes deeper than being "sad" for a lot of children and families images being uploaded to FB and their where abouts being found could be disastrous.

Thank you, lliveinalighthousewiththeghost in some cases it literally is a case of life and death. And how despite the actions of fosters carers, adoptive parents, ss, schools and the police, the child's safety can all be destroyed by a simple video placed on facebook.

I have a friend whose daughter isn't in any school pictures and has to be removed from settings where pictures and videos are taken. This is because her dad has continuously threatened to kidnap her and he has an injunction against him. he doesnt know what school shes at. Something like this would tell him. and cause hell. YANBU its fucking selfish behaviour