To have a picture of me and my daughter as my profile picture?

[profilepic]

There’s a lovely picture of me and baby DD that I would love to have as my profile picture. We have a lot of friends and family who have not met her yet. Up until now I have only posted the back of her head or where her face can’t be seen, nothing identifying and very infrequently. I don’t want her to have a big digital footprint and I think the advance of AI is a bit scary, hence the reasons for not posting so far - until she’s old enough to choose and make an informed decision. My question is, is an occasional picture with another adult still reasonable? Especially at the baby stage, where their features are constantly changing anyway? DH thinks it’s fine as long as it’s not pics of her on her own. Using here as a poll to see.

yabu: I wouldn’t post it for the reasons you’ve mentioned

yanbu: yes I would think occasionally it’s fine

Just bumping

I think it depends if you want others to avoid putting pictures of her online. You can't reasonably expect others to follow a rule that you don't follow yourself.

Other than that, I don't think baby pictures are an issue for privacy long term. Almost nobody is recognisable from their baby photos. The difficulty is when will you stop?

All babies look similar. No one will care about you having a baby photo of them on Facebook. Complete non issue.

I dunno, I think as her parents we can choose which pictures go on for sure. That’s a good point re when do you stop

This is one for you to puzzle out for yourself.

Personally, I would use the photo and indeed did. I post photos of my DC on my locked down FB account once or twice a year (holiday photos mainly) and don't allow others to post their photos.

You make a choice based on what is right for you and your family and stop worrying what others think. I put my dc pics on fb as I like the memories and sharing with family around the world, but my dc perform on stage and feature in newspapers/online news articles for their performances so I don’t have much control on their footprint. They’re teens now so I always check with them before posting and my fb is now mostly our dogs as trends are off out with friends more.

That said, I respect anyone who chooses not to share so much.

I think children should be kept off social media until they are old enough to consent, but if you don't crack on. I was lucky to be born before all this was an issue and it was still mortifying when my mum got out the baby pics for boyfriends. It's just humiliation here's Doggy aged two. Covered in chocolate pudding, aww so sweet. Throwing up on a fairground ride, aww so sweet. First day at school, look at those chubby knees, you get the picture. No one needs to see. You can use Dropbox or similar to share photos with people if you want to.

I simply don't understand why you don't just put private settings on your social media so it's only your friends that would see you pictures anyway.

I find it more bizarre that you want to be so private but are considering using a picture with your child for the profile picture with that being the one that isn't private and is the public facing one.

Profile pictures are different, otherwise I do

I now have teenagers - they constantly post photos of themselves and friends online. A few baby pictures are going to be the least of your worries once they hit 14 or so.
Even younger than that if their friend has a phone you can pretty much guarantee there are pictures of your kids online.

Yes crossed with my edit. That's the weird thing. So precious about digital images but then would do that?

I think it’s a case of each to there personally I don’t see a problem and wouldn’t think twice

others think posting a silhouette of there child blurred out at 200ft is horrendous

do what you feel comfortable with but everyone has different idea of what’s acceptable

Gah I know people will disagree but I think people are overly precious and hardline about this.

I agree in principle that children should consent to having a social media profile and plastering pictures of your kids online is a bit naff, particularly tweens and older. But infrequently posting pictures which aren’t massively identifiable to a select private group of friends doesn’t do any harm in my opinion.

Particularly a baby picture. You can’t really identify anyone from a baby photo.

If she's a very young baby now she's unlikely to be identifiable when older. Even by the time she's a toddler her hair and eye colour might be completely different.

I wouldn't put it as my profile picture no. I just have a pic of me on my own as my profile picture.

I'd be happy to post a few selected pictures separately, with the relevant privacy settings.

I think people are very over the top about this. I don't post anything that could be embarrassing in future, even if it's cute or funny now. But beyond that, I don't see the harm at all in posting a nice photo of a child with their mum.

I have a SIL who makes a huge deal about how she never shows her kids faces on social media, digital footprint blah blah blah. But then she's constantly posting about funny things they say or do, many of which make me cringe as they would so obviously be embarrassing for the child in future.

I don’t post pictures of DC for this reason. Once you start, you have allowed everyone else to do the same. All or nothing on this one imo.

I don’t get why you think it’s different to post her face with you or another adult but not on her own. Any picture that shows her face can be taken and used by anybody.

Yes this

I actually thought the same as this poster. While, yes you are the parents and should get final say, family or friends might see that PP as a sign you are relaxing that rule. Their face will be on social media, and it's a weak argument to say you can have it as your PP (visible to pretty much everyone on Facebook whether a friend or not) but they can't post a feed picture only their friends will see? You have put their face out there first.

I really hate it when pictures of me are posted online without my knowledge (at one point my sister had form for posting flattering ones of herself with me looking fucking awful, which was infuriating as well as being a bit twatty, quite frankly).

I realise a photo with your baby is not the same, but I feel so strongly that it’s an invasion of their privacy that I never posted a single word about, or picture of, my children on social media. Everyone will inevitably have a digital footprint, but something as serious as a lifelong tail of words and images attached to a person forever should be under their control, and I don’t see the need to start creating that chain for them. It’s enough to share pictures privately, surely?

But then I accept I’m probably an anachronism. My kids are young adults now and can decide for themselves what they’re comfortable sharing - which is much more than I ever would!

I post a picture for each child's birthday with them and their birthday cake. Have doen since they were little. They now are old enough to know thats what I do. Then maybe a picture at Christmas and/or 1st day at school. Personally I think that's okay. But also that's me! I don't share anything else on social media. But we have family in 3 different countries so it's nice for friends and families to see a picture on average twice yearly

Even baby pictures have the possibility of leading to ID theft

• is this for a private account?
• can you have the picture in profile / with hat / glasses on etc so partially obscured?

Almost nobody is recognisable from their baby photos, to a person but that's not really the issue.

AI is advancing rapidly and it's well within the abilities of a computer to run facial recognition across historical social media posts and draw together a detailed picture of a person in the future based on these social media posts that you don't think matter.

Mothers maiden name, childhood pet, first school, memorable date. People are uploading all this stuff to the Internet with reckless abandon, with no idea how easy it will be for someone to search it using an image in the future.

That's without considering that AI is churning out huge amounts of child porn, using the faces of kids uploaded to social media. Your child cannot consent to your upload, and the consequences.

Sources readily available online for the deep fake thing, see BBC, Sky news, IWF etc.

https://www.iwf.org.uk/news-media/news/ai-generated-videos-of-child-sexual-abuse-a-stark-vision-of-the-future/