Photos in the park.

[Percyfish3rd]

I recently took my 3 year old granddaughter to the park, and took some photos of her on the slide. As we were leaving a woman said "excuse me, I saw you taking some photos, of that little girl. My daughter was in some of them 8n the background. 8 want you to delete the photos. If you don't I' ll call the police, it's illegal to take photos of other peoples children". I pointed out to her it wasn't illegal, and I'd rather keep the photos. Her husband then joined us, and said as I was using a " professional camera" (there is no such thing) he would shove it into a part of my anatomy I won't mention. I decided to delete them, after all they would be easy enough to recover at home, but how many people would have done the same thing as this couple, even though the photos weren't specifically of their child?

I wouldn't have deleted them, the OP hadn't done anything wrong.

@Percyfish3rd

Why do so many people assume I'm putting these photos on social media? I have never, and will never use Facebook, Twitter etc. Why on earth would I put photos or other personal information on line for strangers to see? It's worse than leaving your diary open for everyone to read. As I stated, several other people were taking photos on their phones, yet they were ignored. Why does delating photos make a difference? The photos are still there. A more polite requet from the couple would have been far better.

That's daft. Phone cameras tend to put the whole scene in focus. Someone using a decent camera will usually set the focal length, etc so only the subject is in focus and the background in blurred.

When I used to do street photography I carried a print out setting out the law on photography in public places in the U.K., in case I was challenged. As others have said lots of police don't seem to be aware of the law on this, let alone the general public.

I'm glad you were able to recover the photos, OP.

I would have deleted them straight away. You could easily have waited for them to move to another part of the park and then taken some fresh photos.

There was no need for them to behave so aggressively, but in terms of the actual photo issue yeah, you would have been unreasonable not to delete them so I’m glad you did.

There are all kinds of genuine and serious reasons why someone might be really uncomfortable with a stranger having pictures of their child, and yes they can’t prevent it and it’s legal but I would try to have some compassion personally about it instead of digging heels in because it’s legal.

They don’t know that you wouldn’t share it on a platform like Facebook and once you have the pictures it’s out of their hands. I’ve seen so many people post pictures of their kids with other children clearly recognisable in the frame, tag the location, and think nothing of it. Sadly you can’t trust people so if you can avoid them having photos of your child in the first place that’s the better option.

@PurpleDaisies

You should have deleted the photos when they asked.

Why? She did nothing wrong.

I read this whilst sat in the playground at drop off (we were early!) and I'm raging on your behalf OP! How dare they?! And to approach you with a threat before even attempting to ask nicely?!

Why? She did nothing wrong.

Don’t people bother reading threads any more? I have explained why I think that in plenty of posts after that one.

I have already answered your exact question from another poster.

@DynamoKev

I love how everyone is in witness protection. It’s actually a wonder there are actually any unsolved crimes when people can be easily found by looking at random strangers social media

There was a case at our local nursery where a little girl who had been adopted had to be moved to another nursery because a parent shared one of the pictures nursery send home via the app on their Facebook, tagging the nursery, and the girl’s bio parents were told about it via a mutual friend and showed up at the nursery.

You might scoff and think it’s just people being silly and overprotective but this kind of thing can have serious consequences and if it were my child who was potentially at risk then yeah, I’d rather risk upsetting someone by asking them to delete the photos than not. I would approach it differently but I’m uncomfortable with the ‘urgh, stupid overprotective parents, ignore them you’ve done nowt wrong’ running through this thread. So many people who haven’t had any experience with safeguarding issues just don’t realise why it’s a problem.

We had a similar problem on the beach recently. When we suggested that the solution was for the woman to remove her child from the vicinity of the photograph (a giant sandcastle that my children and their cousins had built - we were trying to get a group shot with the finished article) she kept insisting that it was a public beach. It was a huge public beach so why have your child hanging round a strangers family when they are trying to take photo, if that's a problem for you? Bonkers!

There are all kinds of genuine and serious reasons why someone might be really uncomfortable with a stranger having pictures of their child, and yes they can’t prevent it and it’s legal but I would try to have some compassion personally about it instead of digging heels in because it’s legal. then they need to keep their child out of the public eye.

if there are legitimate reasons why a child shouldn’t be in pictures then that child shouldn’t be put in a position where they might appear in pictures. So that’s no walking down the street, no ever going into shops where they’ll be spotted on CCTV, the child themselves may never be permitted to have social media, to play with friends who may or may not take pictures. The child may never have a camera phone because they will then be able to take pictures of themselves. And the list goes on.

The fact here is that it’s not realistic to expect that a child never appear in anyone’s picture ever. It’s not possible to make that happen, so parents who take on children with such complex (and frankly very rarely the case,) reasons for not being recognised need to just reconcile themselves with the fact that that child is going to appear in pictures on a daily basis, and may well be recognised. Those parents need to be equipped to deal with that rather than making threats towards one single person who happened to have children in the background when that same child will probably have been pictured another 100 times that day alone.

Again, if someone is uncomfortable with photos for a valid reason, they act swiftly (and politely). They don't wait until someone takes several photos, finish playing and start to leave!
If anything, that would ensure the photos are put on social media by then.

If someone is taking photos of YOUR child, by all means have a go. I would.

If someone is taking photos of their children, and your kid happen to be in the background, then move along.

No, it’s not possible to guarantee you can prevent it 100% of the time. But if you see someone taking photos of your child you’re well within your rights to ask for them to delete it, even if they don’t have to comply. I think we’re both aware the situation isn’t as black and white as you’re making out, and there’s space here for empathy and understanding.

I don’t really understand the mindset of ‘don’t have to delete so shan’t’ that some posters are espousing. Seems a little obstinate when the alternative (deleting them and taking more without the child in the frame) is straightforward enough.

People could be doing a facebook live in the park and those children would appear live on those video’s.

The parents were twats, and I would have refused to delete them on principle at that point.

The main concern appears to be around children who have been removed from their birth families for whatever reason and have been fostered or adopted.

In that situation the risk is surely far greater from a child being spotted in a supermarket and followed home, or for a determined member of a birth family to walk past every Primary School within the town to try to spot the children. Or for a child to be follwoed home from a supervised contact or something.

@AlternativePerspective

People could be doing a facebook live in the park and those children would appear live on those video’s.

The parents were twats, and I would have refused to delete them on principle at that point.

You would do something that could cause harm to a child out of principle because their parents or guardians were twats?

No, it’s not possible to guarantee you can prevent it 100% of the time. But if you see someone taking photos of your child you’re well within your rights to ask for them to delete it, even if they don’t have to comply. I think we’re both aware the situation isn’t as black and white as you’re making out, and there’s space here for empathy and understanding.

Of course you have every right to ask. Just as the person taking the photos has every right to refuse.

@RaspberryCoulis

The main concern appears to be around children who have been removed from their birth families for whatever reason and have been fostered or adopted.

In that situation the risk is surely far greater from a child being spotted in a supermarket and followed home, or for a determined member of a birth family to walk past every Primary School within the town to try to spot the children. Or for a child to be follwoed home from a supervised contact or something.

The risks are plentiful and they can’t all be prevented. Nobody (I hope) would suggest that if a child is looked after they should be sequestered away in their bedrooms without doing any normal life activities until they turn eighteen.

Risk management isn’t about ‘we can’t eliminate all risks so let’s not bother trying to avoid any’.

@ PassionfruitOrangeGuava no, the OP wasn’t taking pictures of their child. She was taking pictures of her child. It just so happened that their child was somewhere in the background. That’s just tough luck frankly, and if the child is that much at risk the parents wouldn’t have her out in the park in the first place, and wouldn’t have waited for the OP to leave before behaving like threatening tossers.

And no, I would refuse to delete them. Not because I felt that I shouldn’t, but because I refuse to be threatened with violence unless I complied with someone’s impolite demands. In fact I would have called the police myself, and they could have explained things to said arseholes.

I pity the child having such awful parents.

So they watched you taking photos and rather than move their child out of the way they became aggressive about you removing the photos?
Difficult to say what I'd do, probably just remove them but wish I'd had the guts to say jog on mate!

That is really, really sad. I can’t believe you’re happy to admit that so openly.

You would do something that could cause harm to a child out of principle because their parents or guardians were twats? I would assume that living with parents who are capable of threatening violence in a public place, in front of their child, puts the child at far more risk of harm than me taking a picture which I was never going to display in a public place, yes.

The “it could cause serious harm to a child” is just bollocks. The majority of parents kick off about pictures with no valid reason what so ever, but the “it could put my child at risk” argument is something people hide behind. If a parent is that concerned that their child is at risk they would have noticed the OP with her camera and called the child away at the time, not waited until she left the park and then threatened her in front of her child and theirs.

Let’s not pretend that the OP was likely putting a child at risk here. It is highly unlikely.

@PurpleDaisies

Why? She did nothing wrong.

Don’t people bother reading threads any more? I have explained why I think that in plenty of posts after that one.

I have already answered your exact question from another poster.

It's a public place.

The arseholes approaching the op have no right to ask anyone to delete photos that they or their kids might be in the background of, and they certainly don't get to go around threatening people with violence.

They were fucking arseholes.

I wouldn't have deleted it, don't worry when I get home I'll crop your child out because I certainly didn't want her in the picture, why on earth couldn't she budge out of the way when I was taking pic of my child... gosh 💁‍♀️

Seriously though I would've said when you saw me taking photos you should've asked I don't take it whilst your daughter is in the park background. Go ahead call the police. They sound like chavs, sorry op you had to experience that

The arseholes approaching the op have no right to ask anyone to delete photos that they or their kids might be in the background of, and they certainly don't get to go around threatening people with violence.

Everyone (almost) has agreed they had no legal right to demand the photos deleted. Everyone agrees their aggressive behaviour is unacceptable.

I don’t agree that carers can’t politely ask for a photo to be deleted if their child is in it, knowing that it would be done out of courtesy rather than obligation.

Wouldn’t most people who aren’t arseholes do that knowing people sometimes have good reasons to worry about their child being in someone else’s picture that they have no control over?

I'd have let them call the police and then reported them for the threats they made against you.

Legally you were in the right, and they were probably nutters who have bizarre ideas about what sort of photos paedophiles are interested in.

But at the back of my mind there's the thought that this could have been a child who, for instance, is adopted and if their birth family managed to find a picture of them and track them down, there would be a genuine threat.