Was I unreasonable to post this picture (privacy)

[midlifesharp]

DD competes in a sport. She’s ok but has never won anything. She enjoys it though. She’s trained a lot recently and had a competition I was able to attend - and she won!!! I managed to snap a once in a lifetime action shot of her doing so as well.

I have a very small private Facebook - fewer than 100 people. Family, friends and a few school parents. I wanted to post the picture, mainly for the older relatives. Now, also visible in shot was DDs friend, coming in behind her. Friend is lovely, mum is a little difficult. She’s super crunchy and quick to share her views. I checked with her before posting the picture as her child was also in it, not expecting any problems as she regularly posts her own pictures of her children. However she said that she didn’t want her daughter on anyone else’s social media -so I posted the picture with her daughter cropped out as much as possible and with the remaining half of her face blurred.
She’s now messaged me asking me to remove the whole picture as people who know the girls compete in the same team could guess that it’s her daughter. You cannot tell it’s her daughter at all! It’s half a blurred face, an arm and a leg.

Am I right to be a bit cross or have I misjudged a parenting/ privacy issue?

You know, you could just not post the picture on Facebook at all. Just a thought

I think she has the right to ask you to remove her daughter fully.. you did ask and to be honest, you never know why the reason might be... personally I hate this posting of kids on social media and don't think it's right so could not just keep it for the family photo album and maybe sent to a handful of relatives..just take it down altogether? Or at least crop her daughter fully off

Did you check with your daughter first before you posted it?

Exactly..she's physically asked this woman if it was ok to post and she said no... so she shouldn't post

I know you are trying to help but this totally defeats the point of the other woman’s concerns. I think she is being ridiculous but your solution is worse.

OP has done enough by cropping and blurring so the girl isn’t identifiable.

If you have the original photo hold onto your daughter image, it usually selects just the person and gets rid of everything else

@midlifesharp was the photo a face on image with the other competitors closely behind as in this attached photo? if so it does make it difficult to completely remove the other girl without leaving a messy blur but if you have other photo editing apps such as Airbrush you can highlight your dd and intensely blur the background and other runners. takes some practice with these apps but can be done.

@Mrsttcno1 you seem VERY invested in this. Are you the other parent secretly ragin' because your DD came second?

If it was a race or similar, often there are official photographers. If you don’t want to be snapped, you draw a big x through your number.

I’ve posted multiple race photos with my dc in them. It’s accepted that if you’re in a race or other sporting event, unless you show that you opt out of being photographed, you will be.

Your mate is only cross her dd don’t win!!

I’d keep your photo up.

Well done to your dd. Make sure you celebrate her win with her!

Don't use Chatgpt. That's basically feeding the photo into the internet.

Do you understand how chat gpt works? Uploading someone’s picture to it without permission is a far bigger breach of privacy - you have immediately lost all control of where and how the image is used!!

The child is half cropped out and blurred. It’s not her child anymore.

Completely agree OP isn't doing anything wrong here.

For safeguarding reasons in schools it's sufficient to show backs of heads or stickers over faces of looked after children.
Even if the friend was cropped out, mutual acquaintances would still know that the friend had been in that race

Not on Facebook or other Social Media. Just the odd posts to sites like this one.

Although l appreaciate the good points of Facebook and similar. News, keeping in touch etc. From the experience of friends and neighbours It seems posts snd photos can be easily taken the wrong way.

A minefield. l wont be joining any time soon.

Hope you sort this problem/misunderstanding out amicably.

There are Facebook groups that will happily edit the photo for you. I’ve seen them do pretty clever things.

But that option will come down to your comfort with putting the image outside of your control

There is a group on FB called Photoshop That. Ask one of them to remove friends DD they are amazing. I did similar but asked via a PM as it was a surprise for SIL and she is in the group

Add a massive emoji to cover her daughter

This.

Imagine if it was a totally different child that had won the race and their parent had uploaded their winning child onto FB without consulting the mother of the child who was second?

You have absolutely no way of knowing what images of your child are posted on FB if they regularly take part in public sporting events or performances.

I’m pretty sure the majority of parents are not diligently erasing out all the images of random children in the background when their darling child comes first. I mean, they should - because it’s truly awful how many images of kids get put on FB without consent - but they won’t.

Does her daughter normally win?

Honestly, no matter if you think it’s not a big deal, you really shouldn’t be posting other people’s kids on social media without their parent’s consent. There are a plethora of reasons as to why somebody would still be uncomfortable with the cropped/blurred image. It’s quite easy to unblur and image anyway. I’d remove it if I were you. It doesn’t have to be on Facebook. You can just send the pic to the people who you’d want to see it.

What reasons would someone have to object to a photo where their child is cropped out of it?

How can you unblur a photo? This isn’t possible. OP can unblur the original as she has the photo on her phone and can undo edits. But a random person cannot undo the blur on the photo

Clearly jealous parent.
What a twat.
Ignore her.
Leave the picture up.
Step away from the parent going forward.
Encourage other friends.
They get worse.

You have done absolutely right. You asked the Mum, and acted on her answer, making sure her daughter cannot be identified. End of.

If fully cropped - none. But we’re talking about a partial crop and a blur (which can be very easily unblurred by saving the pic and uploading it to one of many free online programs).

One primary reason against posting others to social media, esp a Meta platform, is that you’re feeding the image to the AI which will then use your child’s image when it generates other content.
Another is general safeguarding which another commenter pointed out. You don’t know everyone’s situation. But the likelihood is that your kids go to school with kids who have fled DV. Photographs contain so many clues. People don’t realise.

You’re absolutely right regarding DV etc. But how can a parent possibly control for this if their child takes part in a public sporting event? There will be scores of photos taken with many uploaded to social media. It’s impossible to police.

The child is cropped and blurred from the photo. This is sufficient. What’s left of her face is distorted by blurring such that it is not there anymore. There is no chance whatsoever that someone will be taking that image and using advanced software to try and de-blur the child’s face ffs, even if they could manage it well enough to see anything close to the original image.

OP’s friend’s concerns are hysterical.

We have adopted children in my family who cannot have images online, and no one would be so ridiculously hysterical as to see a cropped and blurred image of their child in the background of a photo as a possible risk.

The OP has ensured the child’s anonymity.

The friend also cannot control her child’s image appearing in hundreds of photos, in the background of strangers snapping away in public. That’s life. The whole thing is utterly ridiculous. OP has made the effort to remove the child from the photo and if the friend can’t handle the fact that her left knee is still visible then she needs to get a serious grip.