To withdraw consent for photos for dc at school

[ShouldntHaveBeenSoHasty]

I agreed consent for photos for my dc at their primary school when they joined a few years ago. I didn’t think anything of it and assumed you only withhold consent if you have quite serious safeguarding concerns as I know it’s probably a bit of a pita for the staff to be sorting out kids who have/ haven’t got permission if loads of people decline just for the sake of it.

But my kids photos have been used in every piece of promotional material for the school. If they ever visit local businesses it will be my kids front and centre in the photos. I think it’s a bit ridiculous and it’s probably a bit irritating for other parents too. I’m under no illusions that it’s because my dc are particularly photogenic or anything, it’s just because they’re the only mixed race kids in an otherwise entirely white school.

Would I sound like a dick if I point this out to the school or withdraw consent? The school probably haven’t even realised or if they have they’ll think they’re doing a good thing by pushing my dc forward as it’s “inclusive” or whatever.

You have a right to withdraw permission at any time. You don't have to give a reason.

That sounds very annoying!!!!

Your kids don't need to be their token towards being an inclusive school. Is withdraw permission if that's how you feel they are being used.

How big is the school? If it's big enough for an Operations manager/director I would speak to them, if not go to the office manager or failing that head of year - phone the school and ask for a conversation as the school will need to redo all their materials with your kids on it.

If you just send a message to reception it will get changed on the system and no one will think about existing materials, just future arrangements.

This needs to go up the hierarchy so the right people action it.

This would annoy me too, I’d have assumed it was more for school newsletters and internal displays. I would withdraw consent but I am not sure if they can keep using the photos they have already taken.

There are only 60 odd kids in the school, no operations manager or anything like that. We live in a very touristy village and they kids spend one day a week out of the classroom where they inevitably end up in the cafe/ pub/ lifeboat station to write up what they’ve been doing. The businesses then use the photos for marketing which go on the village FB page which has nearly a quarter of a million followers. It’s more those photos that bother me but obviously they were taken due to me consenting through school and I do t know if it will sound cheeky asking them to remove stuff retrospectively. I just Googled the name of my village and there are photos of my kids on the first page of Google images.

That’s really bad! Do you have a copy of the release you signed?

You can't do much about the images that have already been taken and used if you signed a consent form. But you can withdraw consent for future images.

I'm surprised the school allowed the children to be photographed for other businesses to use as promotional material. In my current school the permission options are:

• none
• internal use only
• school promotional material and social media sites

We don't even have a space you can consent to the children being used by other businesses!

I'd ask to speak to someone senior - a deputy head perhaps? Ask if it is possible to change the permission to internal only. That way they can use photos for a wall display at school, but not online.

I'd also definitely ask the businesses to remove the photos from their facebook and / or websites. I'm not sure if you can force them to though.

I absolutely see why it's getting to you, but withdrawing consent for photos completely would perhaps mean them being singled out more and you and them losing out on nice things like group photos from school plays or whatever.

Could you have a conversation with the head teacher to share your concerns about your children being used as Benetton poster-kids and ask for how they might be able to rein it back when it comes to promotional material, on a best endeavours basis. Eg OP's DCs to be included only in group photos of ten or more. Form teacher to intervene when the village newspaper photographer is trying to move them to the front of the group photo as usual.

It's not cheeky to withdraw consent at all. Do not be made to feel bad about that for one minute. I work in a school and it's just not something anyone there would be resentful of, we all have GDPR drummed into us every time we have an inset day!

The individual businesses I would contact myself. One by one, get those pics taken down. And they shouldn't have an issue with it either. You are perfectly within your rights to ask them to be removed.

And you can do it retrospectively. PP saying there isn't anything you can do about past images is wrong.

Maybe your kids love it. Maybe the sight of a camera and they rush to pose.
Have you talked to your kids?

YANBU! Especially as you suspect their motivation here.

I wouldn't want my children's photos pasted over every bit of school promo/website.

When they started school I allowed photos but then suddenly the school went from a password-protected weekly update to an external blog. They also got stuck into social media, so I asked to be switched to internal only.

If you want them to remove the existing images from their website then they should do that without hesitation.

It's fine to withdraw and it's not that unusual nowadays. My kids aren't online at all. Our childcare lets us choose what photo permissions to give, might that be an option? So we consent to the ones on in school app and on walls at school, but not to ones for marketing purposes or freely seen on public websites.

The school is using your children as promotional/marketing material, unpaid. That’s annoying and not in the spirit of your consent at all.

I would withdraw under these circumstances.

I'd withdraw consent too for future photos.
And I'd say why - that they always seem to be picked and it's too much.

@Needmorelego kids are oblivious but certainly not ones t to rush to get their photos taken in normal situations. They’ve both individually mentioned that they’re the only brown ones in their school though and it won’t be long until they figure out why it’s always them being pushed front and centre.

I can’t remember exactly what it was I signed for dc but I know I didn’t put any stipulations on the photos. I’ll speak to the teacher tomorrow as I’m sure she won’t have even thought about it. I don’t want to speak to the local businesses. It’s a really small place and I don’t want to be the woman that makes a fuss. I’m worried they’ll think I’m accusing them of some form of racism when I’m not, it just makes me uncomfortable.

I've never consented. Didn't stop them putting the Christmas nativity on fucking YouTube!

I refused consent for my kids - for no reason other than I don’t want their picture to be public. It’s fine. They put a big heart emoji over their face or whatever if it’s a group picture or choose one that doesn’t have them in. It’s awkward for them but I don’t care!

I work in a school, quite a few kids don't have photo consent for many different reasons. Its a shame when we can't use a nice photo, but we would never question a parent for their reasons. It may be worth just drawing their attention to it though, it's quite lazy.

You gave permission for school to take photographs and use them . Not local business. I would be so annoyed and remove my consent. If our school wants to use my children's photographs for marketing / outside the school community they ask first .

Id be inclined to raise it as a safe guarding issue given how much their photographs are used, the tourist village you live and the amount of members that the Facebook page has .

The school let's various local businesses post pics of the children?! Wow. Yea definitely remove consent.

YANBU.

YANBU..