To hope that all parents who put photos of their children on FB/Insta/Twitter end up getting sued . . .

[Harumphy]

. . . by their grown-up children for breach of privacy.

Children have absolutely no say or control over what is shared by their parents, or with whom it is shared.

My family member has posted, on her public Instagram feed, her son's full name, date of birth, and every waking moment. Now that information will be out there for anyone to consume. At best, this could erode the boy's sense of self-esteem, security, and privacy. At worst, the data can be used to commit identity fraud or give a stranger the information they need to socially engineer access to him.

And I don't care if you say that you get consent before you post anything, because children don't have full knowledge of the context of their decision. They are not cognisant of the whole range of risks.

I also don't care if you say your FB/Insta/Twitter is private. Social networking sites are porous. Facebook in particular is never private, and the data you share will never be expunged.

I think it's not your place, and it's not your right.

I post very very little about my children on social media (with strict privacy settings) but OP sounds like the kind of person I’d cross the road to avoid..... one of life’s fun suckers

I'd like to put pictures of my kids on Facebook for their wider family to see, but I don't because they have asked me not to. I asked them a couple of years ago and they said they didn't want pictures of them to be seen by people who might make fun of them or be mean or whatever(this happened once when fancy dress pictures were seen by children they knew). I took the view that if they were old enough to frame their concerns then they were old enough to set the rules.
That doesn't make our way the only way, or superior to other people's. I do think that if the children express concerns, they should be listened to. I don't think that wishing all sorts of dire consequences on people who just want to show off their much-loved offspring is very nice, or at all proportional.

I agree with you OP, though hope the suing thing does not come true. I worked on website forum and was continually amazed at the stuff that people would say or info that people would put out about their children or their lives in general , under the impression that they were somehow in a safe space because everyone was very friendly. The duplicity and lying I was aware of would have shocked those people. We did try to tell them and deleted overtly sensitive info but it didn’t take much to build up a pattern.

My DH had an identity theft problem, enabled by publicly available info, not social media ( that would have been very helpful to the criminals if it had been available ) and it was very tiresome to sort out.

YABU

I don't see the problem with photos, but I put mine on friends only settings.

If you were talking about info that people write about their kids in their statuses and blogs about parenting, I'd say you have more of a point.

Imaging how you felt at your first grown up interview, for university or for a graduate job maybe. How would you have felt knowing that your interviewer had seen a cute photo of you age one in the bath? And age three with chocolate ice cream smeared all over your face? And age five in a ridiculous Halloween outfit? And age seven in a strop over not getting your own way? And now imagine your first day in a new office where all your new colleagues who are complete strangers to you have seen all these intimate moments from your entire life?

cheese why would that happen?

Can't trawl through 14 pages but how many of these parents get hysterical is their child is included on a school's photos? I always find it amusing that a generation of 'caring' parents who are so 'protective' of their children are so cavalier when it comes to putting their child's image out there.

I'm going to take a stab in the dark and guess you've had quite a sheltered life OP to be quite so serious and hyperbolic about matters such as this.

My SIL smoked daily through both her pregnancies and drank at the weekends with both her children and got my MIL telling her she knows best, never did her kids any harm etc etc yet both of them have this same opinion on sharing photos on social media

Funny how people will say “your child, you raise them how you think is best” apart from take pics and share them with people you accept to be able to see them on your private profile

Harumphy - totally agree with your original post - I find it insane that people put their kids info and photos on the internet - completely dangerous, do the parents not realise that not only is identity theft a threat, but paedophiles trawl through these Facebook pages, ‘private’ or not, and look for kids photos to transfer to child porn sites. Family friend works in cyber crime and told us all about it. If people could hear the stuff that goes on they would never ever do it again - NOT an over reaction on my part. What gets to me even more is when people think it is fine to put photos of other people’s kids on the internet without permission - I have had to tell a few people to take photos down. Mum sent us the only Social Media in our house - and WhatsApp for phoning friends and family abroad - no photos though

it all changes next month when GDPR come in however. There is a new legal right for children when they turn 18 to get it all removed.

@cheeseismydownfall unless they’ve gone for a job at MI5 where the interviewer has found their mothers random Instagram name and looked at all the pics it’s unlikely. Surely as it’s such a generation thing anyway all other peers at the job would have the same anyway so it wouldn’t matter. Well apart from the handful of people on here who would 100% never share a pic on social media just in case it affected a job prospect for the child 18 years down the line, obviously.

tilly until this year I didn't share photos of DS2 and yes, I did get 'hysterical' about school/other people sharing his photo.
I got pretty much told I was a twat for worrying about it on mn a number of times.

Want to take a guess what happened when my employer (a local authority) put his photo on their website and in the local press without my permission?
His birth mother turned up at my house screaming for 'her son' at 2am.

Doesn't mean I can't share photos of his brothers on my own facebook. Anyway, whats wrong with blanking out other people's children if you upload a photo? Its easy done and avoids any potential issues.

Mine are teens and 'used to' sharing pics of themselves (under very strict instructions) they see it as normal.

Now at a recent party a couple were caught in the act - only 20 seconds - 4 phones filing the 'action'

Natural for them to share? 500 people had see this video is less that 1 minuet after it happened.

It crops up from time to time and it's stored in others phones

It took 2 weeks for her parents to see the video and contact the school - bit late - everyone had been giving her a hard time.

Still OK? Still Normal?

Then there's a strange boy who takes girls photos and write horrid stuff on them - and posts on his SM sites - nothing the girls or the police can do about it.

Some of you need to catch on.

TheFirstMrsDV to answer your question, because nowadays when applying for job, uni place etc, recruiters do a social media search on the applicant - Facebook, LinkedIn, instagram, Twitter etc - very commonplace to do so. Recruiters/employers have been known to set up fake profiles in order to suss out potential employees.

With you all the way!!

hungryhippo it is a serious matter. I can see people disagreeing with the suing part of the OP, but just do not get all the jolly s and minimising going on with this thread. Cyber security and data infringement is a real problem that regularly makes the news, likewise social media is continually combed for info by different companies. Not long ago several famous actresses had their emails and phones hacked which had pictures of them naked on them. These were private.

When my Eldest DS went for a uni induction day recently, he was actually told he should start building up a positive social media profile as potential future employers from around the world would look at it in order to get a picture of what kind of person he is, things he's done. Now imagine I was the sort of parent who had posted pics of him in every single moment of his life since he was born!

Have a nice weekend, enjoy the sun, don't log on, drink some wine, get laid. Anything to take your mind off other people's lives, please

This. Absolutely this. OP you come across as deeply resentful and unhappy.

My DD loves signing her name, I will have a chat, show her my facebook and get a signed agreement, suggest that you all do the same

how exactly do you buy stuff op. Surely you must be breaking your own rules because kids items are 9 times out of 10 advertised with a child on them.

Must contact a lawyer and sue my parents for showing the baby album to all and sundry.

I agree with you completely, i am SO glad i grew up in the era before social media (Facebook wasn't a public thing til i was late teens), broadband internet was only just becoming the norm when i was 15.

There's too much technology for kids these days, and social media etc it's all just asking for trouble. Even now as an adult i can't stand someone taking or posting a picture of me. People should get to choose how much of themselves and their lives they are willing to share, not their parents.

I don't post photos of DD on any social media. I have far to many random kids who I don't know and don't know the parents of pop up on my timeline because so and so on my friends list has been tagged in a photo. I don't want my DD's image out there like that. Just don't. We take a lot of photos of her, they are shared privately with family and friends under strict instruction that they aren't to end up on Facebook etc. She is as entitled to privacy as I am and until such a time she can consent I won't make the decision for her.

A friend had a problem with photos of her 3 year old DD , in nightwear, in swimming costumes, being shared on an public Facebook account by her exDHs partner. Her own settings of any pics were to close friends inc family only, her exDH had agreed to this, not reluctantly and they coparented well, and he only posted to a restricted group as well, but his partner took photos and posted them openly. When my friend objected to this, he said he didn’t agree but what could he do ? ...... 😡

For those who are saying social media can’t have any effect in later life - my daughter was asked to give access to her social media accounts as part of the final recruitment process for an internship for a major marketing company. ( To clarify, not her password, but to accept them as friends or similar so they could see restricted posts ). Not unusual at all as a request, many of her friends had the same thing - she had already ‘ curated ‘ hers to fit the right impression.

YABU actually Yabunreasonable !
They’re photos .Use your common sense and your children will be fine !
Eg.dont post address’ ,names of schools,keep profiles as private as possible