To not let my kids appear on school social media?

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Since DC started school, I've never consented to their pictures appearing on social media.

I thought a lot of parents would do the same, but the majority of parents do seem to have consented as the social feeds are full of lovely pictures of everyone else's kids.

Last week for example, there were lots of great pictures of sports day, and the week before, pictures of a school trip.

I'm now beginning to think I'm just making myself miss out on nice pictures of DC at school events, and actually there's no a real downside to letting them be in the pictures.

What does everyone else think? AIBU to not consent, or is there a real risk to having pictures of children on open public social media?

Does it though?

I'm all for child protection, but that seems to be stretching the bounds of credibility. Surely it would be much easier to just pick any random image of any child anywhere, or take their own pictures out in public. Still awful, but I just cant see the whole doctored photo from the school website being a thing.

im not entirely sure there is an issue with someone wanking over a doctored photo of my child if I’m honest. I will never be aware of it and neither will my child. Hopefully their local police will catch them and imprison them
Exactly that! The focus needs to be on reducing the paedophile links. These people will always find a way to satisfy their sick business. They will just look at finding pictures elsewhere.

Might as well band all children from beaches!

It’s weird how obtuse you insist on being.

I never thought my son and I would experience such an amazing special bonding time looking at all family pictures.

Literally no one is suggesting no family photos, the conversation is sharing children online and specifically another setting sharing your children online.
You can say you are happy to have your children shared publicly online, but to be disingenuous and suggest the other side of the coin is not being able to look back on family pictures when your children are older is just blatantly ridiculous.

Or just make sure their bodies are covered in appropriate swimwear at all times? I can't bear people who let their kids run around naked in public. Kids should be taught their bodies are private and anyone outside of their immediate family (or the doctor, when mummy or daddy is present) that wants or asks them to see their body is not a good person and they should tell a trusted adult.

I have not consented to my DC's image being used on school social media and never will.

Look at school websites - lots of pictures of children but all backs of heads. Children (under 18s?) are not able to give consent so parents give consent on their behalf or not as the case may be. Pictures on social media are by parents perhaps without explicit consent.

But it is a thing, and It’s literally the advice from the NCA to schools that they shouldn’t publicly be posting images of children online.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/08/uk-schools-remove-pupils-photos-online-ai-blackmail-threat-grows

My children are 22 and 18 so I am saying it as someone with older children.

My children’s school took photos throughout the year, and every summer, we got a book with them all in with comments about what they had been doing. There is no need to put them online, it is unnecessary risk.

Schools can share photos with parents without putting them online though, like my children’s school did.

The push from some to put kids photos online is really weird.

In a time of AI and it being used to distort children’s images (for vile purposes is all I’ll say), I wouldn’t. There’s far too many creeps around and some randomer knowing where my kids go to school - kind of freaks me out personally.

I also have a moral standing on this where I think it’s unfair that children of today have their entire lives added to a digital footprint without consent. Imagine getting to school age and your entire life is already online?

I was at a toddler activity class recently and asked a gentleman there not to record my daughter (the session said no recording) as I didn’t want it on social media. He got quite uppity about it which I found odd considering the class said no photography. I do think some people don’t understand the dangers of social media and giving the internet all yours and your kids information.

It’s ultimately up to parents but I’d rather not.

while i understand the concern around AI, i’ve never understood the worry as someone says thread of a weirdo identifying your child’s routine by knowing what school they attend.

kids walk around in public wearing their uniform, that’s the same identifying clue as having their face on the school’s website.

Exactly this.

We don’t live in innocent times. I’d hate to see my kid in one of those deepfakes, I think it’d scar me.

You wouldn’t see it though would you?

just for my own fun I’ve picked a random location (Warrington) gone on the councils list of primary schools and checked the first three-

2/3 have no face photos on their website- the other has loads of face photos

1/3 has a twitter account but never posted on it. The others don’t have twitter. None of them have Facebook, insta or TikTok accounts.

I checked as I know in my local area no schools post children on social media. Ours is just messages from the headteacher

I’d ask what is the benefit of sticking your child’s photo online?

For the likes? Is that it? Instant gratification?

Walking them down the street is presumably part of your routine, a photo on Facebook is for the parents not the child.

My DC, now a young adult, has reverse-imaged searched their own image and asked for them all to be taken down. There were a couple of pics from school and one from a club from when they were really little. All taken down without question.

If I had young kids now, I would not consent. Your momentary pride is not worth long term risks. It is a shame that this is what the internet has become, but there we go.

The thing is, there are people like you who throw caution to the wind and clearly use social media a lot.

Personally I wouldn’t do it. The only benefit to sticking a kids photos up on social media is so parents can relish in the likes. It’s of no benefit to a small child. If you have certain relatives you need to stay in touch with, you can send via WhatsApp or email which is what I do.

I stopped my MIL putting photos of my children on social media and you’d think I’d asked her to give up a limb. I just don’t want all and sundry knowing everything about my children and their routine. It’s safeguarding as much as possible for me.

This sounds like a bit of a 2008 post. Who in this day and age “posts for the likes” or indeed who likes posts of random school
Children 😂 social media tends to be more aspirational now, as we all constantly hear.

i don’t post at all on social media, so I can’t answer your question, but open social media accounts from non “influencers” is rare and I wouldn’t say people need to document a benefit in order to be justified in posting.

i asked @takingitdown but she didn’t answer so I’ll ask you-

can I ask, what if your child was really talented? An actor, cheerleader, swimmer, runner? If they won the county championships or just this weeks park run. what If they were offered a role in a west end musical or a Netflix show.
Would it be a no no no from you in case someone makes them into a CSA image?
if so I think you really need to justify that.

I don’t use social media at all. That’s the thing, just because people think like I do it doesn’t mean they use social media, post with abandon and have no privacy settings.

i think you think it’s common because you make these assumptions.

You do realise that MN is a social media site?

Yes you can see is all posting photos of our children can’t you?

you knew what I meant. But hope that gave you a moment of satisfaction

I think a lot of my generation (millennial) grew up with the social media platforms and had that brief period between no social media and just enough. Now it’s far too much and the older generations are often the worst at putting all their information online.

I would say no. Further to that children have been banned from social media so when she is 16 and allowed online to these platforms, she can consent herself. Anytime before 16, it’s for the relatives not for her.

If it’s not for the likes or the admiration from randomers in your friends list, why bother putting your children online in the first place? If it’s going into the void anyway, why are you wasting data? Because ultimately it’s for you to show off, not for them. I also don’t like how people will have hundreds of ‘friends’ on social media (including my MIL) who would see and know my kids schools and routines as I don’t know these people.

What stops one of them finding out too much information and approaching my child with quality information to target them? There’s already a risk from close relatives as some posters have said so why would you extend the risk to some random people on the internet?

Why do you keep repeating the same thing like it’s some sort of gotcha?
Presumably they haven’t attempted to pursue an acting career for their young children because the parent has no interest in what that entails.
Also not sure why you think a child would need to be posted online publicly in order to participate in a park run or football championship? Weird.

I meant to mention triangulation. A future stalker can find you if they can link your name and photo (say via your LinkedIn) to a parent, who has a public location (say, via a job or open social media) then to your home town, to your past life, to other photos .... and so on. It is, for anyone with any know-how, easy to build a picture of a person through their digital footprint. It may not matter when your child is 10, but when they are older and don't want to be tracked, or linked to previous places, activities or events, then it may matter to them. The fewer digital footprints left, the more broken the trail and the lower the risk.

Plus all the data is a profiler's dream (digital marketing, whether product or politics) which you may never even realise. The more I write, the more cross I get!

I work in tech.

People are ridiculously stupid on the internet.

I think some people have a bit of a superiority complex around downplaying other parents fears.

I don’t really understand it myself.