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?

@GlasgowANN definitely nu. You don't know where those photos will end up. Probably all over social media given most people plastering their kids everywhere. You should feel proud of protecting all those other kids from being photo'd and videoed!
Too much life is wasted in watching it pass through a camera lens.

You are not being unreasonable to not want your child photographed/filmed if thats your choice.

YABU to complain if they’re asked to sit out for a few minutes whilst they take photos/ film. Now all the other parents miss out.

My children go to holiday clubs because i am at work, i love seeing what they’ve been up to because if i ask them its not reliable, the same as when they’ve ‘done nothing at school’ all day.

YANBU to not want your child filmed if you have valid reasons for this, but YABVU to say that they can't sit out. It's not fair on the others or on the Club. If other parents sign to say that photos are ok, then they can take photos of those kids only.

You can't have it both ways, there is a huge sense of entitlement there, stopping him from being in photos, then whining because he has to sit out of photos.

I'm shocked at how many people have said you are being unreasonable.
This is your choice and I would be doing the same as you. You don't need to explain to anyone why you don't want them filmed.

Batshit if them! I don’t allow any schools or businesses to photograph my children as it’s then typically used for newsletters and social media. They are being extremely unreasonable! My child’s school and scouts just block out his face before posting or try to have him facing away. With the rise of AI I’m even more strict. How the fuck would they manage if looked after children, those in DV situations or custody or children of higher profile people attended?
please make a formal complaint. I’d be removing my child asap if this is now stupid the staff are and malicious to punish your child! And for what? Free marketing using your child’s face

I’m not sure what you are wanting to happen? You don’t want your kid filmed, you don’t want your kid to sit out and you don’t want them not to film at all now. Short of buying your kid an invisibility cloak one of those things isn’t going to have to happen.

The entitlement is the weird club thinking it’s a right to photograph and film others children! A lot of us don’t have our children on social media at all to protect them. Why does this club need to be photographing them anyway? AI porn is a known risk these days. And to make the child sit out is spiteful.

Nobody is pushing OPs child into the picture.
Nobody at all.

The problem is making a song and dance and whining that your child will " miss out" because they have to step aside for literally seconds. There is no way the child will be excluded from activities. No way.

But hey, Drama... Complaint.

What is the actual problem OP has???

Surely they can just block out your child's face? It's not that hard, they don't have to be excluded. I see loads of this on nursery and school social media. Just emojis on their faces or blurred out.

This is weird as my child got a yearbook with photos of him and friends, but zero are on the social media or website. So maybe OP just doesn’t want her child on social media.

As I said! I’ve been there when this happens, multiple times. It’s a few seconds. You are so far out of touch with this, they walk around with a camera talking sporadic photos/videos. What, Do you think they set up an Olan Mills style photoshoot for a few kids making a bloody kite, or playing with the big parachute? Final version? Stop it! If they spent that much time editing for a ‘final version’ then they’d just edit said child out.

YANBU - you probably have a valid reason.
I think it's a bit unreasonable of the club saying "everyone misses out" because it's not filmed. Not true. Everyone still gets to participate. I'm not sure why these clubs are so obsessed with filming everything. Not everything has to be documented.

You are not unreasonable to request that they don't use your child's image in photos or videos.

What are they using the photos and videos for? Is it for sharing the children's day with parents and guardians? Promotion on social media, print media etc?

They should have safeguarding policies and training in place along with their risk assessments so that names and faces aren't shared publicly.

There is the additional concern in the current tech climate about data farming and AI which is increasing the levels of concern around the sharing of children's faces.

Children who are being fostered, adopted, or any other looked after children, will have very good reason for not wanting their face photographed or videoed to be shared.

It is very, very hard in the moment to try taking photos or video of a group of moving children if several aren't allowed to be photographed or videoed. Yes the emoji stickers can be used on faces, that's extra time and energy on top of everything else and it's much more time consuming and challenging if it's on video.

I can see you've had some very emotional responses from parents above who want to and like to see photos and videos of their own children taking part in school, holiday clubs, activities etc.

I think the suggestion that the setting has put forward briefly removing your child from a space or activity that is being photographed works is a reasonable compromise and your inflexibility is why your post has annoyed people.

We have changed our approach in school so any public facing images or social media doesn't include any faces. I had a similar approach in my last job which included promoting workshops and opportunities for people of all ages. Also on the blog I used to run and the connected social media accounts. Not using faces did impact negatively on how my content performed but there we are. I'd use images of children's hands in a tactile activity, or of moving feet in a dance class. It's enough to suggest the activity and the age of the participants but stopped there.

Photos are easier to ask people to step out of as it's a couple of seconds at most. How long are the videos and what are they being used for?

You can't say no knowing that excludes them AND complain that they'll be missing out. Just decide what's more important to you. Some people have very good reasons for no photos.

@GlasgowANN why can't they take photos then put a smiley face over your child's head?

Thats what schools who use social media do.

It's a little tricker with video so surely they can just video the others or your child can sit out for a couple of minutes?

Firstly, you’ve just made that up and secondly, of course it benefits your child. Without marketing the club wouldn’t run, there’s even a possibility they only signed up themselves based on the marketing they saw of other children having a good time there.

Well done for protecting your child’s privacy.

Id be having very strong words with the organisers about their attempt to emotionally manipulate you into giving permission.

I’d be reminding them of the school who were blackmailed with AI generated indecent images of children taken from their website.

It is perfectly possible to film and photograph an activity capturing only those children with permission.

Then they don’t need any child to sit out because they can just chose an angle where the child isn’t there right?
Because nothing in what you’re describing is requiring the child to be on the side at all.

Assuming of course that they do things exactly the same they do at the events/summer class you’ve attended ofc….

Which doesnt seem to be the case as they specifically said the child would be asked to stay on the side. Whereas for a few seconds, id just have said 'yes thats fine. well get organised around it'

Seems unfair that other parents can’t see the few minutes of footage of their dc. They have even stopped doing class photos here because people complained their dc were excluded from the class photo (because parents said they wanted no photos) was easier just to not do them

What other solution do you expect?

Exactly, I completely respect that some people are fleeing abusive situations/foster carers and can't have their child filmed (honestly not sure what happens when they're at the park and other families are filming their own kids, as it must be impossible to always avoid being in the background of these videos which might well be put online-it must be very hard) but you can't stop others having videos.

YANBU to not want your child filmed but you can’t have it both ways. The natural consequence of that is that they have to stand aside for a few mins whilst the photo/ video is taken.

That’s what I said. It’s too much hassle so staff don’t film or share photos. Much less stress all round.

It’s fine to say you don’t want your child photographed or filmed. Other parents do (I’d like to see what mine are up to in an activity I’m paying for). It doesn’t mean hours of filming, but if you don’t want your dc photographed, they can’t be in the photographs. 🤷🏻‍♀️ That’s surely obvious, right?

Fwiw, blurring and emojis over faces are easily removed by editing apps. And frankly, unless you have a stalker who is specifically trying to find where your children are on a given day, when creeps get images of children maliciously, they aren’t really interested in their faces and can edit different faces onto the body anyway. Better to not have their images captured at all, in which case, yes, they need to sit out.

Why are yoy against your fully clothes child being photographed?
Anyone who comes up with the whole pedophile issue, clearly most avoid swimming pools, beaches, and just walking down the street because anyone can see your child or photograph them with their mobile.