to be annoyed that a stranger lined my children up and took their picture in the park without asking permission?

[IlanaK]

In Regent's park today with a friend. Three boys all way ahea dof us on the path scootering. A group of tourist men lined them up with the stream and trees as backdrop and took their phot before we could get to them.

They got a right telling of from me though.

Was I being unreasonable?

I fully appreciate we have to protect our children. Just think it's so sad that it's got to the point where my Mum, who doesn't see her grandchildren very often, got stopped from taking pictures of them swimming. I also think it's sad that my DCs will not have videos of school plays/dancing comps etc because we're no longer allowed to film. I can see both sides to whether YABU or not Ilanak and really not sure what the answer is.

bossybritches: "The laughing heads of innocent children appear on the tortured bodies of other innocents to make it appear they are enjoying the horrific stuff happening to them."

Even if this is true, wouldn't it be slightly more useful to catch the people doing the horrific stuff?

Don't smile, children, because it might please a paedophile.

so, I can appreciate that SOME of the people photographing children in parks without permission might be paedos. But also another theme on this thread is annoyance that (probably) innocent people are taking photos of children without permission. How many MNetters have their DCs photos in profiles (at least 3 on this thread then stopped looking cos almost out of battery). Anyone could download those pictures without permission....

ubergeekian- I'm sorry to shocok you but it DOES happen & Wisteria people DO go to the trouble of doing this levelr of computer editing it's how they get their kicks.

sorry if it seems hysterical or paranoid but having had long talks on a regular basis with a close friend on Operation Ore ( I don't choose to have these convos but he needs to offload someof the horrors he sees) it is a reality.

Now these gents were probably perfectly innocent & it was a cultural misunderstanding, but you still have to be aware of these things in todays sad society.

And NO Wisteria my kids DON'T build their own web-pages for that very reason!!

ladette I agree it has got very sad- I think there is a difference between being careful though & being PC & relatives taking piccies of their own kids swimming as long as other kids aren't in the picture.

"The comments about them being fully clothed made me laugh- (sorry OP to say this ) have you never heard of cutting & pasting?"

I assume you are laughing at me. If someone wanted to cut and paste a picture of one of my kids onto a child being raped then they could just use a zoom although why they would bother when they could download one of the millions of pictures of laughing children from the internet is beyond me. Its because of this that non of my children have a pictue of themselves in a nativity or play or concert.

No teakettle not you specifically but lots of posters in general!

Yes they could (& some do) use a zoom & yes some use other piccies from the net but how did they get there in the first place? From innocent happy snaps taken in the park by unsuspecting individuals & then posted for all to use!

We can't stop it but I was just trying to make people aware there IS a danger & to be a bit cautious without making yourselves paranoid about child safety.

Oh & BTW why when I said "made me laugh" I meant in a rolling eyes, concerned way not PMSL sorry wrong phrase really!

YANBU, our local swiming pool has a alley running down one side of it and instead of a wall theres glass screens we were there swiming once and noticed some bloke taking photos of the kids with his camera phone he was chased by security but we never used that pool again!

Well, Flame, I know what you mean and of course lining them up in shot rather than catching them by mistake are two different things, I just wanted to get my line in about being boinked on the nose by an outraged M-Netter because some of the paranoia on here about children in pics seems completely barking, it's all so inconsistent and random.

Our local paper, for example, runs a 6 page pull-out on children's nativities, complete with names - is that wrong, or isn't it? (of course not.) Now I take the point that the posing Marys and Angel Gabriels had their parents' permission to be in the paper while the OP here had not given permission, but if pictures of children are not wrong per se, which clearly they are not, then how can a tourist or a casual snapper be expected to understand a reaction of outrage such as in the OP - they must have been totally bemused by their 'right telling off'.

Just to confirm again in light of the recent posts on here, I do not have a problem with the photo being taken because I thought they would use it for sexual reasons. I do not think they were peadophiles.

I just think it was rude and unwise to take photos of someone else's children without asking permission.

An old man in my doctors surgery gave ds a sweet the other day - just gave it to him as we were on the way out. Ds smiled and said thank you and I took it off him as we opened the door. I have to say that I was a little stuck as how to explain that the sweet little old (incidentally chinese) man might have given ds a 'bad sweet' or might be less nice than he acutally looked.

YANBU.

Ds took the sweet eagerly btw and was unwrapping it in seconds!

Sorry but I'd have pushed them in the bloody stream.

YANBU

spugs, do you live in Sunderland? There is/was a swimming pool there with a glass wall facing onto an alley. Its really awful. Bad enough other swimmers seeing you half naked imo without passers by.

YANBU. I wouldn't dream of taking a picture of some children, that I didn't know or adult for that matter. I would be annoyed, to say the least, if someone, particularly a stranger took a picture of my child without permission, in the same way that I would be annoyed if someone took my picture without permission. It is sad, though the world that we live in now. You can't even video your own child's christmas play anymore .

YANBU i'd of took the camera off them and stamped on it...

I'm with wisteria on this: you are all paranoid. worried about where dd is all the time with builders? stump on the camera? harmless old couple? come on where's the common sense gone?!

If it was someone suspicious looking fine but if you cannot see being it a problem why MAKING it one!!!!!

I couldn't believe I wasn't allowed to film dd at the local swimming pool because of this crap!

BB you are being ridiculous IMO - yes, ok it does happen but you didn't ever answer the point I made that your child is not being abused.

The people I know involved in the preventions of these crimes and I know a fair few are the first to admit that there is actually nothing you can do about people taking photos of your dcs and they would not stop people taking of theirs, on holiday for instance.

Would you go up to someone who is taking a picture of their kids on holiday in the swimming pool and happens to get your child in frame and remove their camera? I presume you would yes. How do you know that the 'official' photographers (any old parent who claims a sticker) at a school play aren't actually paedophiles? How do you know that one of your family friends isn't?

The answer is YOU DON'T. Stopping tourists taking a photo of your children will not protect your children from their images being used. Yes it is a disgusting concept to imagine your child's head on a brutalised child - at least your child isn't being brutalised though.

I don't know how old your children are but good luck when you try to stop them building webpages, they all do it unfortunately, as I realised quite quickly and had to change my viewpoint and if you prevent it in the home the chances are they'll do it at a sleepover where you will have no control or knowledge of it - at least I can look on my children's webpages because it's all out in the open and we talk about the dangers.

Forgive me as I don't mean to be rude but I would say you are the one being rather naive to be honest.

YANBU YANBU YANBU
good for you telling them off

If my childrens picture was taken because they happened to be in the way of a family taking their childrens picture then it wouldnt bother me, but the OP's situation was at the very least rude and disrespectful. Unfortuantly, in our society you really cannot be to careful, there are alot of undesirable people out there praying on children and i for one, would rather be over protective

If you are on the street they are allowed to do it. There was an important recent acse on this. JK Rowling lost. It is clear if you're in the street people can take pictures, even of her 18 month child. If they sneak into your house they cannot do it. That's the law.

We often got Japanese tourists wanting to take pictures of our blonde children in London and I was happy with that. We were usually around though at the time - people do tend to ask.

bossybritches: "ubergeekian- I'm sorry to shocok you but it DOES happen"

Perhaps it does. But I still think that it's the physical abuse that needs caught. Paranoia about every photograph of children doesn't help. All it does is teach kids that strangers are EVIL and NASTY and must NOT be trusted EVER. I hope I never descend to that state of paranoia where every image of a smiling child is suddenly a potential image of abuse.

If we were all a little more interested in other people's children, and a little bit less scared about intervening, there probably would be less abuse going on.

All you people who would seize cameras, push tourist into streams and so on ... how do you think an abductor or abuser would react if they saw someone photographing their victim?

no

i wouldnt have liked this either!!

Have to agree with Wisteria. One of my best friends is currently in one of Her Majesty's hotels for some truly awful things. I had no idea and was giving him comforting hugs the week before he slithered away from the police, only I had no idea what was upsetting him. Kids adored him, he was (I thought) one if the loveliest men I have ever met.

Took me the best part of a year to stop crying about it and, unfortunately I will always be a bit suspicious of people. You never, never know.