Should there be guidelines around posting photos of kids on social media?

Should there be guidelines around posting photos of kids on social media?

MY SONS’ school celebrated Book Week last week. It was a typically colourful sight stuffed full of achingly gorgeous Harry Potters and Hermiones, a Frozen princess or three, a couple of Willy Wonkas and even a Wonder Woman.

You get the picture and the parents all around me did, often. It was smartphone overload. No surprises there.

I took a couple of snaps too and when my eldest son gathered with his classmates one of the mothers took a few close-ups of the group which included her Darth Vader son.

She showed me the results. Yes, super cute. We talked about her emailing the pics to me. The children did their parade. We kissed our goodbyes. Morning done and dusted.

That night during an idle flick through my Facebook feed, up popped my son and his friends — courtesy of Vader’s mother. I felt a prickle of discomfort.

In the past I’ve been quite vigilant around people with smartphones at parties where my children are guests. And I’ve often asked other parents to please not post my family photos on social media.

But for whatever reason, I turned this vigilance off during Book Week. And now I was sitting at home wrestling with my right to online privacy. Relax, Phyllis. Really?

I stared at the pic again. Harmless enough. Harry, Superman and Darth. What’s not to love? So I tried, I really tried to enjoy looking at my son knowing he was also in full view of people I don’t know. What’s the big deal? Strangers will scroll, admire and move on to a cat video.

But I couldn’t get past the fact that the choice to have my child paraded online was taken away from me the moment someone clicked “post”.

I decided to message Darth’s mother.

Now, mindful of how contentious this can be for some people, I sent a carefully considered, warm and polite note filled with, “I’m sorry’s”, “my apologies again for not mentioning this earlier” etc. I asked for the photos to be removed — or at least the ones where my son could clearly be seen. I also suggested he could be cropped out leaving the other children in focus.

I waited for a response. And waited.

A day and a half later, I received a terse message that began with the confusing words, “As a sign of good faith”. But the subtext had the unmistakeable hiss of — you’re overreacting, I’m doing you a favour, you need a reality check.

Um. Did I miss something? I was at a loss to explain her attitude.

But Darth’s mum was right. I really did need to check the reality of posting personal data on social media. So here’s a bite:

• Online photos are forever no matter how much you buy into the fairytale that Mr Facebook will delete your pics when you do.

• Data — your data — is more precious than you think and highly coveted by governments, marketers and complete strangers.

• Face recognition technology isn’t mythology, it’s here and it does more than recognise faces. It has the power to track down other photos, online behaviours, travel patterns and more.

• Short of wearing a paper bag over your face, this technology has the power to fundamentally alter our day-to-day privacy — our personal data will be easy prey for anyone.

But back to the harmless fun of my wizard boy and his Book Week buddies.

As annoyed and disappointed as I am by Darth’s mother, I get it. The innocence we enjoyed pre-smartphone has gone the way of T-Rex.

What really frustrates and alarms me more than blatant online disrespect is how willing we are to aid and abet the ultimate decimation of our privacy. What terrifies me is a society and online world where we will no longer be able to “opt out”.

You can call me a Luddite. You can call me an over-protective mother. I wear both labels with pride. But I won’t wear the notion that this is what modern life looks like now and privacy is simply a nice-to-have.

Please don’t misunderstand me, though. If you’re a social media fan I respect that it’s your (Zuckerberg-given) right to bare arms and boobs, holidays, lattes, injuries, new dogs, babes, designer nostrils and weird lettuce.

All I ask is that you respect my right not to. More to the point, don’t take your upload right for granted because I can tell you from repeated experience that for every parent who’s happy for you to share pixels of their children, there are several more who are staying silent for fear of being ridiculed, criticised or, heaven forbid, blocked by you forever.

So what of Darth’s mother? Was she true to her word? Did she remove the pics of my son as promised? Well, I’ve been blocked from her feed, so I guess I’ll never know.

And that, my friends, is the point. I will never know.

Phyllis Foundis is a TV host, writer, producer, TEDx talker and intimacy activist. Her book, The Joy of Sags, is out this year. You can follow her on Twitter.

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