to withdraw my daughter from nursery

[MethodHandbag]

My daughter (14mo) has been at nursery since September, she enjoys it and is thriving.

There have been a number of Christmas events that parents can attend (stay and plays, Christmas fairs, carols) at the nursery, some I have attended and some I haven’t due to work.

My friend’s daughter is also in the same room as my girl, she recently reshared a video her friend had filmed of her older daughter (two rooms older than my daughter) singing in the carol service. Behind her but almost more in full view is my daughter.

We do not share photos of my daughter online, we don’t even share her name online. Nursery have a firm policy that they do not allow filming on the premises and reiterate it before events.

I messaged the woman on Instagram asking her to remove the video but she hasn’t opened the message as far as I can tell.
Nursery say there isn’t much they can do now other than ask her to remove the video when her child next attends.

I am absolutely livid that my child has been shared online without my consent (which they would never, ever receive anyway) and now feel like nursery cannot keep her safe.

AIBU to seriously consider removing her from the setting?

The nursery was involved because someone filmed the children, without permission, on their premises. This is a serious safeguarding issue because both the recording and subsequent showing publicly is illegal. There are very good reasons why that is so.

The nursery is not taking this seriously enough. I would have been talking to the person in charge of safeguarding at the nursery and contacting the local council (which I assume has licenced the nursery) about this.

This will happen multiple times a year in school - weekly parties, playdates, sports day for the whole school, performances. We have 200 plus kids in our primary - shall I check 400 parents (plus grandparents!) social media after sports day to check no ones shared a tiny picture of my child in the background of their photo? Ridiculous. The best you can hope for is the nursery to contact the Mum and ask her to adhere to the rules in the future (mainly because its only fair to all parents if thats the rules).

But the OP needs to accept her chids image will (and undoubtedly has already) been shared multiple times if she’s been at that nursery a while. It will also have been shared in whats app groups between parent friends at the nursery. If her daughter goes on to do sports hobbies, it will be shared in those groups or on social media by those parents too. Removing the child from nursery is madness.

This is a serious breach of safeguarding and GDPR regulations and the Nursery is not taking this seriously enough. My first action, if there is no satisfaction from the owner/manager, would be to contact the local council, who I suspect have licenced the business, for advice and if appropriate, to report the situation.

You do realise that what was done is law breaking? Filming children in public is entirely different from filming without permission at a private event and then sharing that footage. It's against Safeguarding and GDPR regulations and the situation is not being taken seriously enough by the nursery in question.

OK, so the OP does that, destroys her relationship with the nursery, has to find alternative childcare etc. Then her daughter appears in the background of some birthday party photos.
Or when she starts school, a parent videos the nativity.
Or her daughter joins a football team and someone films a game.
Where do you stop?

You know OP your real fear should be when your child is old enough to go online themselves, that is where the real danger lies.

You are understandably projecting due to what happened to you, but taking your child out of the nursery where she is presumably happy and settled is very unfair IMO.

I think it would definitely be worth getting some professional help tbh so you don't let the terrible things that happened to you impact your dd. There are a bazillion pictures of people's kids including celebs all over the internet, I very much doubt anyone is interested in some video covertly filmed from a weird angle that happens to have your child in it.

Its really sad that nowhere in this is there any suggestion of accountability by adults filming other people's children and that maybe they just don't do it. Maybe we don't need to record every bit of every child's life in the first place and put it out there for public consumption?

What on earth do you think the council are going to do? It wasn't the staff filming a child inappropriately, it was a parent secretly filming a Christmas performance. The nursery asked people not to film it, what more were they supposed to do? Search everyone and pat them down? It's already been put up online so it's too late to do much about it now anyway.

I would want much tougher action from the nursery - they should have told parents either not to record at all or to keep any recordings private given mixed views on sharing among parents. This parent has therefore broken nursery policy and they need to remind her of that very strongly. Is there an all nursery parents WA group? Ours has this. I would post a message on there saying that “we are aware there is a video on social media from the Carol service which features our daughter, we did not give consent for her image to be shared, so please can this be taken down.”
OP, we tick the same box on all the forms and I would also be cross.

🤣🤣🤣

Surely the only person you can be mad at is the woman who's posted it? What more can the nursery staff do?

Giving up on MN at the moment, it's attaching random posts to my posts 🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

You’re not wrong but the fact is they do, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

Moreover most kids seem to have smartphones by the age of about ten these days and most manage to join instagram and the like way before they’re old enough and are then uploading their own images to social media.

This trend should have been stopped at the time social media became a thing, before it got too big to police.

The damn has broken now and there’s no going back.

Even for children who have been fostered and adopted it’s never going to be possible to keep them offline because even if the school/nursery don’t put them in their photo’s they absolutely will appear in other people’s.

Talk of going to the council and ofsted over a picture where a child was in the background so it’s not even as if the picture was actually of the child in question, is so ridiculous it’s laughable.

Ideally the nurseries should change the policy to have smartphones left at the door when going in which would then not only stop unwanted photography/video’s but would also stop people’s phones ringing/text messages going off etc, but I guarantee you that if they did that the same precious people on this thread would be up in arms at having to be without a phone for the half an hour it takes to watch the play.

Which aspect of GDPR has been breached by the nursery?

It would be helpful if you can quote it - because many familiar with the regulations will struggle to follow how a private individual doing something with their own videos breaches GDPR which are regulations primarily aimed at businesses and public services.

Massive over reaction because of your own trauma ! If there's no safeguarding concerns like an abusive ex or she's a foster child I dont see the huge issue you can't wrap your kids in cotton wool are you going to pull her from every school this happens in because believe me there is always parents that thinks the rule doesn't apply to them and will film at events !

Advise OP about what actions she could take.

Why did you contact your friend on instagram? If you’re so concerned about her posting the video, why didn’t you pick up the phone and ring her?

We are the same in that we don’t share any of our child’s details or photos on social media. I also always say no to their photos being shared by nurseries. However, the reality of today’s world is that it will inadvertently happen no matter the safeguards or policies that the nursery put in place. Simply, many people like the other parent are ignorant to the dangers and don’t think about anyone but their own.
sorry this has happened OP but I do think it’s important to brace yourself that this will likely happen again as your daughter goes through the school system.

I think posting images of your children online is the new smoking. Initially both were promoted as good, then research showed both are potentially very harmful. Some people listened to the research and changed their behaviour, some listened to the research and never even began to engage in the behaviour. Some listened to the research but continued with or started the behaviour anyway. Unfortunately, innocent people are caught up, either through second hand smoke or their own children's images being shared on social media by others. If you want to take the risk for yourself or your family then that's your choice, but it is incredibly selfish to endanger others and should be called out when it's happening.

Get a grip

She's not overreacting. A child in my kid-s class is adopted. Her birth family are violent and potentially dangerous to her. I know because her adoptive mum told me. Photos or videos shared online of this child are a major risk, and could help her burth family locate her. There are reasons why we should protect children like her from exposure, and preserve their anonymity.

Yet they share the details of her birth family with school mums.

Schools do not try to stop filming as it’s just too impractical.

Any child who absolutely cannot be on social media will not be able to take part in performances. It’s sad but that’s the way it is now.

Good Lord 🙈

As gentle as possible, you need to get help with your overprotectiveness. My mother was very overprotective when I was younger (found out later it was from abuse). It put a significant strain on our relationship as a child and young adult. I was pretty wild and reckless as a child and young adult and a lot of it was from trying to break out from her. We didn't have much of a relationship for a while. Eventually we reconciled but it took her opening up to me about her reasons and me establishing boundaries. We had a great relationship until her death but it wasn't good for a while