Woman took pic of my DD on the bus today😂

[babyhaha]

So I had a miserable start to the day today.
I’m 38 weeks pregnant and will be having my C section on Tuesday. I booked a restaurant for DD, DP and I so we can have one last meal just the three of us before our newborn arrives. Whilst we were on the bus, the driver announced that the bus had to terminate as Westminster Bridge was closed because of protests. So here I was with the worst PGP known to man having to walk from Lambeth North all the way to the other side of the bridge.

Anyways! We were finally able to get on a bus and when I got on, I parked the pushchair in the wheelchair space and sat next to an older lady who was already sitting down. I noticed she was on her phone and then suddenly she put her phone up as if to take a picture. I looked at her phone to make sure it was facing her and not my DD but my surprise, she had put it facing DD and had actually taken a picture of her! (DP was also in it)

I said to her, ‘excuse me, why did you just take a picture of my child, delete that.’ She said ‘oh she’s just so cute,’ I said, ‘you can’t just take pictures of kids you don’t know without asking, you need to delete that.’ She deleted it with no hesitation and then I asked her to go into her recently deleted and delete it from there too. She didn’t know how to do that so she let me show her. She then replied ‘thank you, I respect your decision’ ???

It was such a bizzare but funny situation to be in. When I think back, I keep laughing because it just felt like a surreal moment! The last time I caught someone taking a picture of my DD, he was so embarrassed I caught him and was stuttering trying to give an explanation as to why. This woman’s reaction is so different to that and it’s making me chuckle. It’s also making me think how normal this could be? Do you ever see a cute baby and just take a picture of them without asking their parents? Has anything like this happened to you before?

And before anyone starts, this isn’t a case of PFB. I would have said the same if someone took a pic of my 14 year old sister, another family member or even a friend. You can’t just go taking pictures of people you don’t know because you want too!

The law needs seriously updating. It’s not like the days of National Geographic. Photos of children end up in the wrong hands, whether taken by strangers or lifted from social media. Almost a quarter of photos on child exploitation sites have been lifted from social media. I want to be in control of my DCs’ images until they’re adults, the law allowing photography of children needs updating for the digital age.

medium.com/a-parent-is-born/how-pedophiles-steal-photos-from-social-media-d37a19647d7

www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-29/child-rights-to-privacy-ignored-by-parents-posting-images-online/8112506

It's weird if nothing else though, are they going to flick through photos of random children on an evening- aw that one was sweet, oh how cute. Like, why?

But so what if they do? Might be a gp who doesn’t get to see their similar aged gc very often, or someone who lost a child. What harm does it do to the subject of the photo? Surely it’s children who are being harmed and exploited in actual real life situations where the safeguarding concerns lie?

@watcherintherye

It's weird if nothing else though, are they going to flick through photos of random children on an evening- aw that one was sweet, oh how cute. Like, why?

But so what if they do? Might be a gp who doesn’t get to see their similar aged gc very often, or someone who lost a child. What harm does it do to the subject of the photo? Surely it’s children who are being harmed and exploited in actual real life situations where the safeguarding concerns lie?

Yes let's concentrate on the children actually being exploited.

It's weird because why would anyone want a photo of a random baby?

Happened to me once, I am a nanny and I had these two little boys with olive skin, Sandy brown curls and blue eyes , they were gorgeous.

I noticed this Japanese tourist taking his picture and I asked her to delete them.

But any child who ever had their photo taken by a stranger could be being exploited. That’s the point. You have no way of knowing the intentions of the person. All you have is law of averages. “Overall, it’s most likely that the person isn’t a predator” isn’t how we safeguard children. We safeguard children by assuming the worst, and working backwards.

If you have ever posted photos of your children on the internet, or had a stranger take a photo of your child, you have absolutely zero way of being 100% sure that the photo is not on an child exploitation website being commented on by predators.

So when you say “let’s focus on the children actually being exploited” you don’t know if that is or isn’t your child.

@watcherintherye

It's weird if nothing else though, are they going to flick through photos of random children on an evening- aw that one was sweet, oh how cute. Like, why?

But so what if they do? Might be a gp who doesn’t get to see their similar aged gc very often, or someone who lost a child. What harm does it do to the subject of the photo? Surely it’s children who are being harmed and exploited in actual real life situations where the safeguarding concerns lie?

Sorry I still find that weird, there isn't a reason for someone to take a photo of a young child without the parents consent imo, good for you if you feel differently, but I think it's unfair to minimise OPs feelings. Both can be true, it's a bit like the infuriating well you can't moan about x as people have it worse. Yes some children are sadly exploited which is deplorable, but I also would be annoyed and find it weird is a stranger took a photo of my DS on public transport. How can you be so sure what her intentions were anyway?

My ds was extremely cute as a baby and this was not just our opinion, people would comment on this all the time. Now he's older, a young adult I still have people commenting on how handsome he is at least a couple of times a week. Despite this nobody has ever (to my knowledge) taken his photo and I wouldn't have expected them to have wanted to.

@VyeBrator

I said, ‘you can’t just take pictures of kids you don’t know without asking

The thing is she can, so you're lucky she deleted it really.

As far as I know, photography in public places is perfectly legal.

As far as I know, photography in public places is perfectly legal.

It is, but plenty of things are legal but weird or inappropriate. Seems a low bar to go by.

If you have ever posted photos of your children on the internet, or had a stranger take a photo of your child, you have absolutely zero way of being 100% sure that the photo is not on an child exploitation website being commented on by predators.

So when you say “let’s focus on the children actually being exploited” you don’t know if that is or isn’t your child.

Yes, I can see that is an unpleasant thing to think about, but I still don’t think a child is being exploited unless they are suffering harm. A photo is a photo. You could say the same for people watching children in a park, or going past their house to school. You can’t know what is in people’s minds. You surely hope for the best, but don’t let your children ever be in a situation where they could be actually exploited. Most exploitation sadly starts much closer to home than a random person taking a photo on a bus, and I still struggle to see how that would be any danger to an otherwise safe child. We need to be able to distinguish between situations which are potentially harmful and those which are not, or it makes for a very anxiety-driven life.

It’s not about living with anxiety. It’s about how, as a society, we have unwittingly allowed unfettered access to images of children for predatory use simply by posting them online without thinking and giving people an instant camera to take photos whenever they want. As the law stands, we can’t do anything about the latter. It needs to change.

It’s sad you don’t think children are exploited in that scenario. Tell that to all the women whose images have been stolen without their knowledge. If they’d never found out, would that make it okay?

www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-56333561

But so what if they do? Might be a gp who doesn’t get to see their similar aged gc very often, or someone who lost a child

Ok and… sorry to them if that’s the case but that still doesn’t give someone the right to then take a picture of someone’s child if they’re not comfortable with that

Sorry I still find that weird, there isn't a reason for someone to take a photo of a young child without the parents consent imo, good for you if you feel differently, but I think it's unfair to minimise OPs feelings. Both can be true, it's a bit like the infuriating well you can't moan about x as people have it worse. Yes some children are sadly exploited which is deplorable, but I also would be annoyed and find it weird is a stranger took a photo of my DS on public transport. How can you be so sure what her intentions were anyway?

Thank you! And thank you for the other comments were people have come along and have used actual sense. Defending someone when you have NO CLUE what their intentions are makes zero sense to me. I also wasn’t comfortable with the situation but because some posters are fine with it, that means I should be? Yes it’s not against the law but how many things aren’t against the law that are deemed morally wrong. As another poster said, seems a low bar to go by…

@watcherintherye

It's weird if nothing else though, are they going to flick through photos of random children on an evening- aw that one was sweet, oh how cute. Like, why?

But so what if they do? Might be a gp who doesn’t get to see their similar aged gc very often, or someone who lost a child. What harm does it do to the subject of the photo? Surely it’s children who are being harmed and exploited in actual real life situations where the safeguarding concerns lie?

@Bbq1

It's weird because why would anyone want a photo of a random baby?

Exactly. I don't give a shit about ANYone's babies/children except my OWN, and my close relatives children, and the children/grandchildren of my 2 best friends.

Someone said maybe someone does it 'coz they're lonely and have no grandchildren or children of their own.' That may be the case with some people, but why the fuck does that make it OK to go around pointing their camera at someone else's child and collecting photos of them?

It's as weird as fuck, and reminds me of the film 'One Hour Photo' where the man in the photo-processing-booth in a supermarket, processes films for a woman who comes in every few weeks, and keeps copies of the photos for himself. Whilst pretending to others, that she (and her family,) are his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren.