Not consenting to dc being on school Facebook

[nevernotstruggling]

I deactivated my Facebook account for 5 years. Dds are 6 and 9. The school didn't have social media when dd1 started in 14.

I've activated my Facebook in the last week and been directed to the school Facebook page. I was horrified. Hundreds of photos of children including mine close up not group shots far away.

The school sent a media consent form this week where you could choose yes to photos and website but no to social media. I have said no.

I'm worried that this might mean the dds are left out of pictures when they are taken and this might upset them.

I don't consent to my child being posted on open social
Media accounts I'm not having it. It's totally unnecessary and unsafe.

Has anyone else done this? What was the outcome?

That's hilarious, Rocky

Some parents are batshit.

I like having my child on the school Facebook page. It's easy to share the photos with family and I enjoy flicking through them. I wouldn't want them all sent to my phone by WhatsApp! If you don't want your kids on it fine but don't stick your oarbin to everyone else's kids.

Stopmakingafool - exactly.

@StopMakingAFoolOutofMe I'm a children's social worker. In child protection. This is my 10th year in practice so yeh my awareness of real problems beyond my own ego are non existent ;-)

Well they could’ve WhatsApp the pictures to that parent couldn’t they? Hardly difficult and it doesn’t have to be SM.

WhatsApp in an issue isn't it with sending photos as depending on settings, photos sent via WhatsApp end up on parents camera rolls etc don't they? So if I were to whatapp a parent a photo of their kid with other kids, those other kids then end up on that parents camera, and we don't have permission from the other kids parents for that to happen?

Besides which, I am busy enough on a school trip, without trying to ensure that I have communicated photos to each individual parent via their individual preferred method!

Social media goes all round the world. People who wish a child or their parents ill could see them anywhere and then locate them. Going out in public means those in that town see them.
pootle if the BBC only gave first names and no location, I'd be that parent.

Our DCs are adopted from overseas. We don't allow FB etc photos. The school just don't post the photos of them, and occasionally this means moving them out of shot. But I'd be OK with them being photographed in a neutral venue (e.g. a big national Scout event) or with first names only.

(I.e. First names only but no school info)

Due to our Head deciding that if you give permission for them to photograph the children, the school have the right to share them and other data such as names etc wherever they feel like it I've removed permission for school to take photos without my implicit consent and only where they comply with gdpr.

School were a bit arsey to start with when dc asked why they couldn't be in photos, so I explained to my dc that I didn't trust the school to do the right thing with the photos. They stopped trying to get dc to get me to overturn my decision when do loudly told his teacher that his mummy didn't trust them with photos

My dc are fine with it. They'd like to be in photos but realise it's not them but the school I have a problem with.

It's not about protecting them from "predators" per se, but about sheltering our children from the greedy corporates, and protecting them from the risks that come from having an online "identity" before they are able to consent to their photos being owned by a company.

Could you expand on this for me please? Genuine question, what are the risks that come from an online identity? And why do they need sheltering from greedy corporates?

PRoseLegend can I join your club please?

I would be annoyed that the school didn't ask OP.

I think that the school's first question should be 'How does posting this photo benefit the child?' It very rarely does IMO. It takes up teachers' and admin staff's precious time, you can't control where the photos end up and children might not like it when they are older. It might be nice for the parents, but I don't see the benefit to the child.

A lot of my DC's friends had their entire childhoods shared and posted all over the place and feel humiliated by it only a few years later. It can lead to abuse when those photos are dragged up by bullies.

You have ESTYN stopmakingafool. That would be Ofsted / whatever!

@dragoning that's a very good point I'll ask that when I see the head next week

Why are you telling me what I have? I realise, seeing as I work here

Estyn isn't Ofsted. HTH.

I find it extraordinary how so many adults can't see how they've been groomed into handing photos of their DC over to tech giants.

Advances in technology outstips our ability to truly understand the consequences and to put safeguards in place to protect against the risks.

Your school has belatedly recognised the need to ask parental permission. This was a mistake and they are seeking to cover themselves. They must now take action to ensure all pictures are removed, that all staff are aware and that this does not become the child's responsibility to remove themselves from photographs. The need to have photos does not trump the need to include all children in all activities.

@ForgivenessIsDivine and @RiverTam exactly. And yes groomed it's v scary

RiverTam - or we just don't care.

Our school fogs out the kids that can't be in images - it's much less invasive than not allowing them in shot, or using something like emoticons - you barely even notice half the time. It can either be just the face, or their whole body depending on how identifiable they are.

@nevernotstruggling
I'm a social worker in child protection too :)
Children can be exploited in more ways than just the obvious physical/sexual abuse and neglect. I'm fairly sure that in a number of years "posting embarrassing and emotionally harmful photos and videos of my children" online will be considered a type of emotional abuse. There are certainly certain Youtubers that have come under fire for this sort of thing (Daddy Of Five, etc).
I think being social workers makes us more aware of the risks social media exposes our children to. Especially since we don't want parents we work with being able to identify our children in photos etc

I don't do Facebook and the like but I would have no problem with the school posting pics of groups of kids on Facebook. But apparently I am a naive idiot.

I used to work (years ago) on a family friendly website where part of my job was to keep an eye out for predators.
There were a surprising amount of them & the pics they would repeatedly return to view were pics you'd put up in your house of your kids, not sexualised to a normal mind sort of pics.

As an example, in a childrens art forum you might find a 'supposedly' young man who was happy to mentor younger children, but first he would befriend them, then wanted them to meet up with him online at his own 'art' website.
This first step in isolating children was much easier when he could follow the facebook etc... pics posted of kids by parents who don't realise they are leaving breadcrumb trails of clues for predators to help groom their kids.
That cute pic of your daughter with her favourite zebra plushie?
That's another tidbit to help them lure your kid away, even if it's just that by using a zebra icon she is more inclined to like him/her/whatever they are pretending to be.

School uniform & school advertising of course massively narrows down the location of a target.
This is especially true of the ones who put names on bookbags etc... that get included in pics.
They must live in the area that the school accepts intakes from.

Nowadays these predators are far more sophisticated than they were back when I did that job.

My son is 8.
There are zero pictures of him on the internet.

I know a policeman who has just finished working in the unit who deal with that sort of crime as he couldn't take it anymore, he also posts no pics of children online because he has actually seen the end results of successful grooming.

I was told I was the awkward mother when my son was at nursery because I refused consent for his pics to be shared & told them I'd take them to court if they did it again (because of course they thought of themselves first & tried to use a pic he was identifiably in anyway. It helps to have solicitors & barristers etc.. in the family) but I would rather my son be safe than be sorry.

I personally think schools should be fined for posting pictures of children without advance permission for each image - safeguarding should always come before the schools desire to produce cheap advertising.

@PRoseLegend thank you - it was in response to being accused of first world problems and not seeing real ones. Yuhuh 

@Snugglepumpkin I want to give you a hug. Thank you for your post and thank you for getting it and explaining it so perfectly. I knew about the images not needing to be naked. My babies are too precious to me to be on Facebook.

I have been in many lessons in a computer room where my secondary students have found images of each other in reception or nursery online and spent a lot of time laughing at each other or making the shy quiet one feel very uncomfortable. Not so much fun for those children whose images then link through to news stories affecting their families. Or those who have become safeguarding concerns after the pic was published. Or those who have become the subject of a meme.
Personally I do not understand people's obsession with sharing photos all the time. I don't want my own face plastered over the internet, let alone my child.

I have been in many lessons in a computer room where my secondary students have found images of each other in reception or nursery online and spent a lot of time laughing at each other or making the shy quiet one feel very uncomfortable

YY. My DC tells me about this happening in their school. Also as a means of humiliation when bullying continues outside school.

It all seems so irrelevant when our kids are younger. It feels crazy to imagine our cute eight-year-old wishing they had a clean digital footprint as a bullied teenager.