Picture of my children on Company website

[Edrun]

Hello there,
I have recently separated and as I was the primary carer for my children for the last 6 years I want to make sure they are still fully protected and not exposed to being unwillingly appearing online.

My ex-wife keeps them pending a court decision but she is into social media A LOT. I am not and we always agreed the children should be kept off it until they can decide for themselves.
However, I have now found out that my ex-wife's company, which is quite well known, has re-posted a picture of my children on their social media account with their age and name to promote their business and my ex-wife career.
The context is the following: Apparently my ex-wife had a presentation within the company about being a working mum (well, that's the first lie) with a story to tell during that conference. Then, someone on the board of the company posted the slide of the presentation with the 3 mums involved in the talk and a little summary about their family including picture of the children, age and names. This, to show how such a great employee and mum she is and, since the company re-posted it publicly to their millions of followers, how great the company is because of great people like her.

So 1st, it seems it was an internal document that is now in the open.
2nd, even though it was internal, I strongly ethically oppose to anyone using the picture of my children to promote their career or business.
3rd As I am not on social media, I am also told now that for years she put pictures of them and me on her FB page etc (I never go on them and never checked before as I trusted her) without informing me.

What should I do? The company is big, it is well talked about in the media at the moment as one of the next big IT companies, they posted the picture on their LinkedIn account and couldn't ignore what they were doing. 100K of people liked it including my ex-wife.
The kids (4 and 6) have of course no idea how they are being used or exposed.
I was thinking different options (but I'll have to create an account on LinkedIn):

• Privately send a message to the company and the executive who posted it in first place to ask them to remove it and wait to see
• on top of that I could publicly tell them (on LinkedIn and Twitter) I find it unethical to use the picture of children to promote their business. But if I do that, it might be pick-up by some journalists to make a story, which could have the opposite effect of what was intended unless there is no mention of the specific post and just a general statement.

What should I do. I have to say I am a bit annoyed that I have always cared for them, doing all the school trip and attendance as well as homework and outings on the week-end when my ex-wife was partying in NYC, LV, Berlin or Paris in her sooo cool company to the point the children kept telling me "We want mummy to bring us to school because it is always you".
So, now, I realised she has never put the kids interest before hers whatever it implies.

In fact, am I fully entitled to request the picture and post to be taken off since she might have agreed as she "liked" the post.

Thanks

You sound bitter OP. If your kids are living with their mother 'pending a court decision' and not you why is that?

Do a bit of both.

Message on one of their posts stating - hi can you please contact me on X regarding this picture and within 7 days?

Personally just message them.

Wow @reverseferreting you sound lovely! Why should OP explain that to you? I’d follow @failedbluecup advice

Mum can give consent to this. There's really nothing you can do.

You need to sort this out with each other and it's not reasonable to expect others to be one involved in your squabbles.

Surely a message to your ex wife saying you would rather their photo wasn’t on line would be best? There’s no need to be so heavy handed. You are in for a long road and it pays to try and be nice for the sake of the kids. It does sound a little like you are harbouring a lot of anger, and I’m wondering (perhaps wrongly!) if you have misdirected that anger at this situation.

You do sound bitter and just looking for something.

If you don't use sm, how did you find the picture?

If you were the primary caretaker, why aren't they with you?

I wouldn't stir up petty shit during your divorce as it'll just make you look unhinged.

If you’re not on social media, who was your flying monkey who brought that nugget of info back to you?

You sound bitter, and verging on obsessive and vindictive.

Your wife, the children’s parent, has given consent. The company have done nothing wrong. For you to contact the company and try to control your wife’s working life is disgusting behaviour.

Maybe focus on getting a career of your own?

@Edrun "Apparently my ex-wife had a presentation within the company about being a working mum (well, that's the first lie)"

Interested to know how this is a lie? Is there a massive drip feed? She doesn't even work there? Or she isn't their mum? How is she not a working mum?

She's not a working mum ? How is that then ! Move on and stop being bitter for everybody's sake here

Hello, I can get into detail privately with you if you want. I'll explain but be ready to be shocked. Problem is, I follow the law, I don't like to make waves (that is why I'm here because if I was listening to myself, I would shut up again), I am the guy people randomly talk to in the street because I have that face. In the past I lost a job because I stood for women being called "bitches" by their managers all day long. And let me tell you what happen (in that Hugely well known american entertainment company): I wrote to compliance, They came with lawyer interviewing employee for one week. All of them admitted what they did and it was wrong. They got a slap on the hand. On the days the lawyers left, they asked the intern to come to HR. One hour later she came back and left. 2 hours later I left my job and she was waiting for me in the street to tell me what happen. The compliance lawyers offered her a job if she would fill a report accusing me of sexual harassment since she was sitting next to me. She refused, was shocked, never came back. The next week she offered me to tell them she is thinking about it, so could they send her the pdf of the offer. She go it, send it to me and ask me to not use it. I didn't.
The managers who were calling women bitches were promoted. It was before the metoo movement. I lost my job and was happy to leave.

So I'll give you a hint now. My ex has the kids because she used the same tactics with her lawyer as a good bully. Funny thing is that when we agreed to separated she read me a text she wrote telling me how such a good dad and partner I had been but it was time to separate. A few weeks later she reported everything that she could think of that couldn't be proven. She knew I had no money to pay for a lawyer. And you know what, I have proofs of years of physical abuse but I can't show it because I don't want my children to be away from their mum as I garantee she would be. A friend of mine help me pay for a lawyer and they call what I have on her (her email justifying her violence and punches) "the nuclear option".

Btw, if I had to do again everything I did in the pas that cost me my job and more, I would do it again.
And in this very situation with my ex having the kids, I keep taking the hits to protect them when she told them "Daddy left us because he doesn't like mummy". I didn't, she changed the locks the day I told her I would arrange to move out and share parenting under 15 days.
And you want more? She decided to kick me out the day I learned my sister had a cancer. I informed her and 2 days later I got a letter from her lawyer saying "You are using the situation of your sister to put psychological pressure on my client". So I didn't talk about it anymore. 1 month after diagnostic my sister died. I had to hide the fact I was to the funeral and when I informed her afterward, I got an other letter from her lawyer "You hide your sister's death to my client as a deceiving tactics and now you are using the fact you went to a funeral to justify a delay in moving out".

And that is just the beginning of all the things she has done so far.
So yes I am waiting for a court decision (without telling them how violent she is, with proofs) to preserve the kids. So I can't have them now because it could traumatize them to being abruptly taken out of the family home.

You can judge me or have your opinion, or maybe you hate men for being men, but that won't change me. I value people for who they are, not because of their gender, origin or culture. So, no, a dad who can't see the kids is not by definition guilty of something.

How is not wanting your children present on a website bitter? Very sensible, I’d say.

Yeah, the obvious reason we could be critical here is because we hate men.

I dont agree with children being on social media before they can consent either and I would be annoyed about this.

Ignore the sniping

In terms of what you can do I suspect nothing. Your wife has PR and she has agreed for them to be on the site, I dont think you have to have both parents permission and you'll struggle to demonstrate they are being harmed as such by this, its fairly common for people to post about their kids.

Unfortunately your wife has consented and she is able to do so.

If you contacted the company, they'd probably take it down - they won't want the hassle.

I agree with this.

Ok, seems to be the right thing to do.
Thanks

Your latest essay, OP, is incredibly patronising and smacks of mansplaining. So maybe the issue isn't awful women. Maybe it's you.

Your children have their own rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to a private and family life. Photographs of them are also personal data under the UK GDPR (UK version of the General Data Protection Regulation).

If you are married, then you and your wife have joint parental responsibility for your children. On the face of it, both of you can give consent. However, if one has good grounds to object then you could seek to raise a GDPR/privacy complaint.

If this were brought before a court, the issue would be what was in the best interests of the child. If you have cogent privacy grounds for objecting, then a court may very well side with you - not least because (a) they are so young so not only can they not give a valid consent but they are too young to be able to express a view either way. If they were 14, it would be different; and (b) on the face of it, there doesn't seem to be anything in it for them - for example payment.

If you object (and I have to say it is not unreasonable to object to inclusion of children in company advertising) then firstly depending on the state of your relationship, I'd raise it with your wife. Tell her you object on behalf of the children, explain why and ask her to ask the company to remove it. I would do this in the interests of not unnecesarily inflaming a situation because going directly to the company without speaking to her first is going to be hugely provocative. This is because it is interferring in her employment relationship so she has a right to know your views first. Not least to give her an opportunity to deal with it herself.

The next step would be write a formal letter to the company complaining of invasion of privacy, breach of data protection and copy it to your ex-wife. They should have a data protection officer who should respond to you; if that is negative, then appeal internally then after that you can complain to the Information Commissioners Office if it gets that far.

Lol. Woman having the audacity to disagree with man = troll.

Not really helping yourself there OP!

Thanks, That is very useful information. I will follow your recommendation. Although we are in the UK but the companies I am mentioning are all in the US.

Who said the person who wrote it was a woman?
How weird it is to systematically assume people's opinions are defined by their sexe.
I just though it was a troll of undefined gender.

That reminds me of people who go into deep effort to pretend they don't have a racist background into them that they try hard to restrain.
But that is another subject.

If only you knew me. But anyway, I am lucky to have met people in my life who got a good sense of people and hopefully they had a good one of me.

The company would probably take the picture down if you ask them, it's worth a polite email asking them before you do anything else.

I absolutely agree with you about children's photos being posted online, especially if it includes their real names and ages.

I wouldn't stir up petty shit during your divorce as it'll just make you look unhinged

This. I agree with you about putting children on SM, OP. But, you're handing your ex a gift if you stir up trouble about it. You can probably get the company to take the pictures down because, as PP says, they won't want hassle. But there is nothing you can do to stop your ex plastering them all over her SM, so it is really worth it?

If you're in a contested divorce, your ex will be compiling a dossier of evidence that you are an arse (I'm not saying you are: I'm just saying that she will want to portray you as one). Do you really want to make that easier for her?