AIBU - Not allowing school to film my child?

[GlasgowANN]

AIBU? My child is at a summer club and they want to take photos and videos of the kids. I've said absolutely no way. They then said my child would have to sit out whenever they were filming, which I'm not happy about because I don't think they should miss out. Now they're saying they just won't take any photos or videos of any of the children because of it, so everyone misses out. AIBU for not allowing my child to be filmed?

No. Likely 60 seconds!

I think it makes a difference whether it’s for their social media / advertising or just to send to parents

What resolution are you looking for from the holiday club?

Have you tried to do this? It’s incredibly hard when you have a few children who can’t be filmed. Children move around and want to get in the shot! Trying to distract with other activities doesn’t work unless the children are tiny either. What basically happens is that schools or activities stop taking photos and videos to share as it’s too stressful and leads to endless complaints.

How do they manage the security of the feed and the privacy of the children? And presumably the feed is only in the communal areas which might create a sense of security but won’t actually provide any.

Well I'll know if I see them online myself. I'd like to think they'd use photos of a child who's parents have actually consented over mine though. Both school and nursery have split the consent down into categories when they were asking for photo permissions. Some children would be at risk if they ignore that so they should be respecting it.

This boils my blood. My husband is very ill in hospital and cannot be with his kids, I would be very pissed off if one person stopped photo's being taken at Summer club instead of getting their children to step out.

Then don’t film. Unless the OP’s contract included the right to film then the club should not be pulling children out of paid for activities because they cannot be photographed.

As @YourOliveBalonz says up thread - either do the job properly, blurring out and masking children without photo consent or don’t do it at all.

Emotionally blackmailing parents who don’t want their children on SM with comments about “the poor other parents” or “they will have to miss the activity” is poor practice.

Why do they all need to be filmed anyway? Can’t they just enjoy the club without having to perform for the camera. Maybe a few photos where they can be left out or face covered for social media advertising, but filming is unnecessary

This. You are not unreasonable to not want your child filmed, but equally other parents are not unreasonable in wanting to see videos of their children.

This

I've explained up thread...some parents will not accept blurring because " you can see her clothes/ shoes/ hair" whatever. And impossible in a video.

And the emotional blackmail claim is tosh.
It's poor behaviour of parents to make a drama where there isn't and impose their own wishes on others.

I volunteer with an organisation that does music and movement/arts activities with SEN kids. Tbh if every parent/carer said no to photos and videos we'd be in a pickle. That's because we need to evidence our activities to funders in order to be able to secure funding in order to operate.

Having said that, we find ways round it when we have people we can't photograph and we wouldn't exclude them.

So it's a shame you said no because I don't know if they are dependent on pictures in the same way we are. But also they should be finding ways round it.

TL;DR is someone wants to leave a club, but still enjoy all the benefits.

I help run a youth sports club, we have a few children who can't have their photos uploaded, but their parents allow us to take the photos and add emoji's over their faces so that they children aren't treated differently, would this be an option?

It’s not hard for them to blur out or put a smiley over your child’s face. You are paying for these activities so don’t accept that they will make your child sit out

YANBU for not wanting your child to be filmed. There are many reasons and they’re all valid. I also don’t allow my child to be photographed or filmed.
I think school and various other settings are just way too obsessed with photos/videos and documenting every moment on social media. As are plenty of people in daily life who for example have to take a photo of their meal before they eat it and film a whole concert instead of dancing. There’s absolutely no need. If people really want to do that in their own life then ok but to start to impose on activities for young kids (making them miss the activity, feel left out, or be constantly moved to the side for endless photos) then it’s just craziness. It misses the point!!

They can easily take a few pics of kids who have given photo permission and send to those parents if they wish, and/or take the odd group pic but anything beyond that is just excessive. Nobody needs to see what their kids are up to every second of the day.
You can be clever with photo angles to leave out kids who aren’t to be photographed, or just pop an emoji over their face if parents happy with that. And that would only become a ton of extra work is if you’re taking excessive photos. It’s no big deal if it’s the odd photo, which is all it should be as that’s all anybody needs.
The world has honestly gone mad with all this rubbish!

Come on. It won’t be a few seconds. They’ll ask the children to start the activity. They’ll have to organise things because it’s always messy. Then they ll start the activity. They won’t stop a game a few second for a child sitting it out. It will go the end. An activity like drawing might be easier.

But what it’s nt ging to be is a few seconds because that’s what you see in the final version. There has been much editing and cutting before that

Also what further bugs me is that they’re basically just doing it to promote their activity/business/school using your child as free marketing material. It is really of no benefit to your child to have their photos used in this way and plastered all over the internet permanently without their consent. Then parents buy into it for ‘memories’ but these do need to be on social media, photos and video could easily just be shared with parents directly, and how many updates do parents really need?

It is exactly emotional blackmail “ oh your child will miss out” “other parents will miss out” if you don’t consent to make your child appear in our marketing shit.

Nobody should be pushed and coerced into appearing in pictures for marketing or personal SM feeds. Nor should the child miss out on paid for activities because of said photography.

If they want to photograph then they need to put in the extra work to do the job properly. Its also not impossible to blur in a video - its editing.

Not unreasonable. I’m a teacher AND I have my own child I will never give photo consent for. There’s far too many weirdos and vile AI users to even think about posting my kid on the internet. As a teacher if a child doesn’t have photo consent (there’s always at least a handful in every class I’ve ever taught) then I just carefully take pictures around them or do group shots with them at the side so I can crop them out etc. No excuses to have a child miss out on anything.

My children arent pictured..
I used to let them sit out for the video or picture, until dd told me they were stood there like lemons for ages while the right shots were taken.
So now I just say put a smily face emoji over their face and crack on.
Its for safeguarding not other reasons so shoes/clothes dont matter as perpetrator would have no idea what they wear now.

So what exactly do you want the school to do? Go back to 1988 when the internet wasn't invented and photos were more secure? You're well within your right to not want photos or videos taken but it sounds like the school have been more than accomodating. You either have to suck it up and allow footage to be taken of your child but on no conditions should it be shared publically (perfectly reasonable and safe IMO) or you need to say absolutely no footage of your child and accept that either your child will be inconvenienced if they're occasionally asked to step out of a shot or the 99% of other families are going to be inconvenienced and maybe annoyed as they won't get to see what their child has been up to (also reasonable but reasonable for the parents to be annoyed as well) What exactly do you want? You are within your right to make a decision that you think is right for your child but it's not really anyone else's job to make that decision an easy one.

Having said that, we find ways round it when we have people we can't photograph and we wouldn't exclude them.

@Dharmamother I agree there.

For me, it sounds like the club tried to sort of push the OP to either accept the photos or to leave the club (because no parent wants their child to be excluded).
And when the OP said No to that, they went for the ‘oh well we won’t even try then’. And point the finger towards the OP for the lack of photos.

Whereas when you look at all of those photos, it’s clear one child is never on all the photos. Actually I’ve often disappointed to not see my child at all.
And then you can blur, put a sticker etc… with all the tools available nowadays (esp with the new AI tools), it’s not hard

I would check GPDR regulations for taking photos and videos, I suspect they need your permission to publicly use them for publicity and promotion of their business.

https://www.gov.uk/data-protection