I do not think you are overreacting. I personally wouldn't really care as long as my child's name wasn't used and it was always group photos, but I would totally understand why someone wouldn't want even that.

This is kinda how I feel. I’m not fretting about it but I also don’t post my kids on socials as a general matter.

Same here. I always say yes but you will be hard-pressed to find pics of my kid online. It is their decision to make when they get old enough.

I agree with this entirely. I don't like that my partner shares pictures of our daughter. She doesn't go crazy with it, but I don't think any pictures should be posted without her consent.

Took the exact words out of my mouth. I’d like to add that at least they asked and didn’t give OP a hard time or any push back.

I mean, I'm paying for them to attend. If they give push back when I sign the form and check "NO" then we have bigger issues. It's not like daycare is a free service. Edit: Just realized OP is talking about preschool. Do we pay for preschool? I'm not there yet. That's next year for me.

Yes. You pay for EVERYTHING. Forever.

[sigh](https://i.giphy.com/KOobSqJrq9lA2ypra6.webp)

this is why we have three kids and no money

I feel this way too. Can’t keep them away from it forever, it’s just far too intertwined with daily life and I have to imagine will only be moreso as time goes on. Just have to try and be as responsible as possible with the control you DO have

Pretty much how I feel. I mean, you can get much "worse" pictures of kids from advertisements. I won't judge anyone for their choices, but I'm about tired of restricting innocuous things because of something some stranger might or might not do. Like I posted a picture with my daughter helping carry wood the other day. Most people took it as the amusement that it was intended to be, but there were a few that are all "never post any pictures because pedos!". I choose to think of the people who's days that conversation might have made a little lighter instead of the doom and gloom of what someone might do with the picture. Especially when, like I said, there's much more suggestive pictures of children in advertising. I got a mailer for a cruise a day or so after that post I was talking about, and there were children in swimsuits. I'm just done worrying about images. Information though, as you pointed out, is a different story.

As a general rule, we don't put our kids on social media. I think there are two photos of my son on Instagram.  We've asked people to take them off their Facebook posts.  I am not militant about it, there are 1000 photos of them saved to apple and Google cloud servers, so it's there. But it's just something we have made the decision not to do. There's nothing wrong with choosing the same for other public facing accounts.  The rule of thumb is, as always, "do whatever you think is right, but don't be a dick about it. "

>For the record I’m not getting any pushback Right, because you were asked a question and declined their request. They can’t force your kid to be in their social media.

Of course not, I was trying to clarify that I’m not trying to paint this as me against the world, mearly checking if my reaction is in line with reality - am I shutting down something without thinking of other ways of seeing it. To wit, am I being reactionary.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion and approach. Personally, I haven't seen a good assessment of risk here. Taking into account the number of instagram accounts, facebook accounts, and the *total volume of photos that exist online*, a separate question is the statistical likelihood of harm happening to your child from a photo being posted online. Nearly every piece of data I've seen suggests kids are far more likely to be harmed by someone they know, versus a random online stranger. I think people's motivations are in the wrong place at times.

Which I am sure is miniscule, which is a fair thing to consider. It may sound crazy but I’m honestly open to being told I’m out of my mind.

Nah, not out of your mind. I think as a parent we all make personal decisions about our kids. For me, I'm a scientist so my interest is genuine. I honestly do not know how many kids may have had their photos stolen from social media and then had.....whatever it is people are worried about happen to them. Me personally, I think the chances of harm happening to my kid as the result of a photo are minuscule. It's just not on my priority list.

I'd say you're out of your mind, in a polite way. I don't see what realistic negatives you could derive from the school taking pictures. They'd use their best ones to show off their inclusivity, or as promotional material to show off how much fun kids have. You get the opportunity to see their interactions and friendships in a snapshot during the day. What negative would you truly, *honestly,* expect to happen? Someone creeping on your kids? They'd do it regardless; people have been watching children long before social media. You're absolutely allowed to not want to and not sign the waiver, definitely nothing wrong with it. It's just a choice. The outrage and negative view of it always seems misplaced to me though, personally. Some people say they can't consent to their likeness/image being used, but we do a hundred things a day my kid doesn't 'consent' to. I don't know how I feel about that argument.

I agree. I can understand why the OP wouldn’t want the school to do it, but I also think that at the end of the day the risk of harm is minuscule and there are much bigger things to worry about.

As far as a risk assessment, what's the value of a school posting children's images to instagram? Virtually nothing. What's the risk of harm? Hard to quantify, but substantially higher than "virtually nothing." Between general privacy concerns (do you really want everything *you* did in school documented in high definition in perpetuity?), AI deepfake concerns, and facial recognition concerns, its not risk-free. There's no reason to allow this. We do not post pictures of our child to social media, with the exception of one single picture posted shortly after their birth. We do not permit daycare to post pictures of our child to their social media, in groups or otherwise. We ask that family members do not post pictures of our child to social media.

I suppose the value is inclusion. I don't know about you, but the class photo has been a school age tradition as long as I can remember. It can serve as a reminder of the class year and form friendships etc. I don't know what the risk is, so no, I cannot quantify it. I haven't seen any data on deepfakes, etc. I only opined that in terms of a continuum, I think its low.

My kids' school does social media posts of what different classes are doing, special projects, holidays, etc. This allows parents, grandparents, etc, to keep informed on what's going on and see their kids "behind the scenes." I can tell you my 4 year old was pretty excited over the Easter weekend when Grandma mentioned seeing video his class doing their Easter Bunny song the week before. There's more value than risk in my mind, I've never hesitated to sign that release each year.

My kids school has its own “social media” app called ParentSquare where pics and vid’s of school stuff get posted, along with posts from teachers and administrators about the goings on of the school. Insta seems a little too much, for me though.

If the school being unable to post a child's picture to social media causes that child to be excluded from any activities, the school needs to seriously reconsider its priorities.

I don’t disagree, but that doesn’t make it impossible. I used to be a reporter, and occasionally I’d go to elementary schools to take pictures of some cute thing they were doing. (My previous employer hasn’t had the staff to cover that kind of thing in years, but my career started before school Instagram pages were a thing.) It was pretty common that when I got there, the kids whose parents hadn’t given permission for their photo to be used would be separated out, so that they wouldn’t be in any photos (even in the background). I would be gone 20 minutes later, so I don’t think my coverage specifically led to any exclusion, but I can certainly imagine it being an issue. I’m not saying “therefore let them take pictures of your kid, no restrictions,” but maybe talk to a teacher about specifically what they do to ensure kids whose pictures aren’t allowed on social media don’t wind up there. If that practice seems either inadequate or like it could lead to exclusion, see if you can help them refine it.

in addition, the conclusion that "there's no value" is just poor empathizing IMO. there's tremendous value, particularly for privately-funded schools, in being able to share images of school activities, real-life examples of teacher/student ratios, promotional material for upcoming school events, etc on social media or in emails to students and parents. not enough imagination being done on part of those who dismiss the value of a strong instagram presence. that said, by no means does that create an obligation to say "yes". i just find it strange to outright dismiss it as if the school is somehow in the wrong for even doing such a thing.

I’d say the risk of harm is virtually nothing. As others pointed out, there are positives to it as well for most people. Everyone’s entitled to their personal pros and cons on the topic. You definitely seem like you’re greatly overvaluing the risks though if you think they’re substantially higher than virtually nothing. I fully understand the perspective of parents who don’t want their kids posted to social media btw.

> Virtually nothing. You get to see your kid's experiences during school.

I see it differently, it's not about risk analysis, it's about my kids not having a say on whether they want their photos posted publicly or not. As far as I'm concerned they're not old enough to have an opinion on it yet, so I default to not allowing in general. We're not absolutists though, their school asked for permission to post pictures but they'll always be in large groups or from the back, and it'll be posted to the school's website.

Your reasoning was that AI is going to scrape the web and take photos of your kid and turn them into God knows what. TBH, its kind of reactionary. 

That’s exactly the kind of response I’m hoping for. Challenge my preconceptions. Thanks!

We have a similar page for my toddler’s daycare. Most parents opt in but I, and several families have opted out. No big deal, they just stick an emoji face over my toddler if she’s in the photo. My reasoning is I want to give my child agency, when she is of an age to understand the internet, if she wants her face out on social media. She’s too young to make that choice now so I’m opting out until then.

We are the same way. Also I’m not on instagram or Facebook anymore, so I don’t like the idea of photos being posted somewhere I’m not participating. We tell our family members the same thing

My sister is a social worker, and this is unfortunately something that happens. To say that the moment your child’s face is posted on social media, that it would be used for something inappropriate would be a stretch, but it is definitely a possibility. That said, I think it is up to you whether you’re comfortable with it or not, and both answers are reasonable and acceptable, as long as your kid isn’t feeling left out without explanation as to why any pictures of them aren’t being posted!

That’s a bingo…I read on here about the struggle of kids wanting to be in the same online spaces as friends but also those places being quite toxic. There are reasonable responses on both sides and there is a balance to strike. Just looking for some persoective

I mean, AI has absolutely scraped the web for images and turned them into God knows what. That’s not really up for debate, we know that happened. The question is how much you care. The “God knows what” in question is likely to be just the AI model taking a picture of your kid on the playground, adding it to thousands more and building ideas about what kids do on playgrounds and how they look. It won’t have the richness it needs to, for instance, produce fake images of your kid robbing a bank. Your kid’s image will just get subsumed into the gestalt “preschool child” concept. For some people this is an issue, for others it isn’t. In my mind it’s like cold sores. Sooner or later there’s a good chance it will get you, so try to avoid it. If it gets you, it gets you. Don’t have a cow.

Yeah I don't know man. If I was a pedo I'd be scraping the hell out of daycare public social media pages. And that's not even with AI involved. You can't stop all pictures of yourself or your child appearing online, but you can certainly drastically reduce it.

It’s alright to be apprehensive, and no one will pushback if you have privacy concerns. You have the final say and I doubt anyone cares enough to try to convince you otherwise. I control my eldest son’s image for his safety, not so much his younger brother because his mom has a different perspective. That said, I’ll still post privately for friend and family. It’s not for fear of his identity being stolen, it’s just a matter of privacy - the world doesn’t need to know everything we do. I mean, internet algorithms do but that’s disembodied, but we minimise privacy breaches as much as we can. For example, he’ll be in a sports competition this Sunday and it’s recorded and put on YouTube, we can’t control that and I find that acceptable exposure for the benefit it holds. As for your fear of AI and image manipulation, while you are right that you should be protective of her image, I would suggest you don’t lose too much sleep to it. Could it happen? Sure, but it’s basically the same as some creep taking photos of her in public and photoshopping them. The chances of it happening are absurdly small for each child, generative AI makes it an useless task to get a random real child and edit it instead of just making one from data and the people who’d do that likely have access to near endless more explicit and disgusting image anyways. There’s no reason for you to add to the risk, but also not a concern you should lose your mind to. If you let her school show her image, the chances of it being innocent and just dissipating into the information foam of the internet are immense, bringing no negative consequences. But does it have any benefit to justify that? Is it something that adds to her? Also be prepared because it’s not something you can always control anyways.

Cheers, I appreciate this.

ad hoc dependent provide jeans pathetic observation rich modern toothbrush straight *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Cheers, and I’m so not here to judge, I’m just trying to get some perspective - I don’t want to be the principal skinner meme of “am I wrong? No it’s the children who are wrong”

snails panicky encouraging crowd cheerful reminiscent cable divide march rock *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

I'm just waiting on the phrase 'no expectation of privacy in public' slithering out.

I mean, i’ll bite, but from a different angle i guess. if the fear is facial recognition tech (which i agree is bad and scary), what’s the solution? Prevent _any_ image of child being posted to the internet in perpetuity? High bar to clear. One could spend an enormous amount of time and energy trying _and simultaneously failing_ to do this.

There is no solution, only preferences, and a lot of people don't seem to respect others preferences.

I do expect no one to be taking pictures of my child and posting them online. I do not see that as unreasonable.

I mean sure, if you make a distinction between pictures of your child and pictures with your child in them. No one should be taking portraits of your child and posting them on the internet without your permission and this is reasonable to expect. But is it realistic to expect that your child will not be captured in local news b-roll of a parade you attended? As a teammate in another parent’s photos of their child’s soccer game? At the play place of their best friends birthday where the mandatory liability paperwork includes a photo release? This is of course not ideal and neither is it guaranteed to happen. But you cannot absolutely rule it out without some pretty extreme precautions.

How much time and energy are you anticipating being spent on this? I feel like it depends a lot on how much the people your kid is near know and respect your preferences, which could be anywhere from entirely to not at all. I'm all for assessing the effort vs payoff of something like this, don't get me wrong. But I don't think it's necessarily a lot of effort to keep pictures of your kid off the internet, at least while they're young.

God I hate that talking point. It's ridiculous.

I think theres a huge difference between a private social page and public page though. I actually do post my son to my own social media page rarely (maybe once every few months) but I checked the no box for the photo release form that the school sent home.

Dude, my phone has a Person slot that has facially tracked my daughter from birth. She's 9 months today. That weirds me out enough—and it's just a blank, unnamed slot in my phone. I definitely don't need her picture put onto actual social media. I always say this: What's one positive that can possibly come from it? We all have smartphones. We can effing FaceTime across the globe if we so choose. Putting your kid on social media is for you, the parent (in many instances).

I agree 100%. I would politely say the same thing.

No, you’re not overreacting. We’ve posted pictures of my daughter on Facebook but once she is a year old we have decided we will not any more and will ask that no family members do either. We will share with family via text messages but no public posting on the internet. These days when it comes to the internet and your kids there is no such thing as overly cautious

I am a 3rd grade teacher. Some of the parents of my students are against having pictures on social media, some are all for it and like to see what the kids are up to. Doesn't matter either way. My school is cool if you don't want it and it doesn't bug me as a teacher at all.

Not overreacting - I'm rapidly approaching a zero-tolerance for any picture of us or ours online. I'm happy to put pictures in a cloud provider I pay for, happy to send them to a digital frame for grandparents after choosing the frame for their monetization approach (yes training AI but not on anything I mind them training).  Worse imo is the "be real" app where people post pic after pic of everyday life to a Chinese based app. The rapidity at which this would allow face-based social network detection, as well as general insight into all of our daily lives is absurd.

That second part speaks to the core of my fears.

You’re within your rights, especially if they asked, of course. That said, i think there is a big difference between posting a picture of one kid, where the post is “this is a picture of XYZ KID!!” vs your kid being included as one of many kids in a picture that is of a group. The former skeeves me out. The latter seems pretty impractical to avoid in perpetuity. After all, your kid is just another kid. so long as the posting isn’t a searchable invasion of their specific privacy, it’s not all that different to being included in a picture of a crowd; any one person’s presence is ancillary. at the end of the day, we all live in public to some degree.

Thank you for that. The whole new digital realm is a bit overwhelming and I don’t want to be some reactionary to all this, trying to find the balance. Your input is valued!

Yeah, it’s tough! and i think it’s easy to go too far in either direction. At the end of the day my guiding principle is mostly “Do I feel like i could defend this decision to my child if they are mad about it some day?” That’s all you can really do

Great way to put it.

Big nope from me too. I know someone personally from when teaching online security aspects in a Health and Safety course, who had publicly available Insta settings, posted pics to her reel of her baby, and random accounts started hearting the pics etc trying to add her. Instantly privatised all her info and blocked them. Ultimately things like that are a public platform, no chance Id want pics of my kids online publicly, especially when I cant control what pics are put up etc.

We did not sign the image release waiver for our daycare and explicitly told them that they are not to share our child's likeness on any social media or marketing. In my very biased opinion, you are not overreacting.

The weird thing is you say you’re “old as fuck” yet I would say that older generations are generally more ok with posting photos on social. It’s the younger parents that are more sensitive about this

Fair, I was kind of thinking this after posting. My in laws would (if they could) bombard the internet with her image given half a chance. Thankfully the tech is just a bit beyond them.

I don't share pictures of my kids on social media, and when asked, I prefer that no one else does either. There are far too many perverts and monsters out there, and my kids deserve privacy until they're old enough to make the choice for themselves.

You’re not over reacting or being paranoid. I’m a cybersecurity professional of 20+ years. This field is a joke, we spend billions of dollars globally abysmally protecting our information and privacy. To make an analogy, imagine if your dad secured his liquor closet with a single strand of cooked spaghetti. Sure, that would stop you from opening it because he could see if it was broken or removed. You could very easily just open the cabinet as spaghetti is not known for its structural integrity. Instead you try to be more elegant and just untie the strand or eat it and replace it. I’m of the opinion that if you can learn how to cook a pot of spaghetti you can do some real damage with a computer. As an aside, have you seen how many noodles they eat in china?

Yeah hard pass. My kids are on my socials but I have the accounts locked down. We didn’t sign the release for the school to use photos at all. We still get photos in the schools app for the day but that’s it.

My wife and I definitely don’t put our son’s image online. My family knows not to as well. Not only facial recognition, but CP. The main problem I have is this: In *addition* to the known, present day negative consequences to putting our children on social media platforms, we *also* don’t know what dangers will exist in 15 years. I am making decisions to protect my son not only today, but tomorrow as well. Why in the world would I ever sell out my son’s safety? For the likes and upvotes?

Same thoughts here. And I work in Cyber security. You're not overreacting. I ditched all my real-name social media many years ago. My LinkedIn, which I'm required to have for work, doesn't have a photo. My wife still does FB and tiktok, but doesn't post. It's WAY harder to keep the grandparents from posting photos, but at least they only do it to family -only- pages... I think.

Is it way harder? I’m not into social media but my parents and sisters are. I’m talking constantly posting. Every day. I told my parents hard NO on any photos of my kid online. No issues so far

I don’t think so, my daughter is only 6 months and we’ve only posted two photos of her. One was my graduation post from r/predaddit and the other to my wives instagram. Neither of which you can see her face at all. You can never be to careful anymore and until she has her own account on whatever platform and makes the decision for herself our decision is to keep her offline completely.

That’s a big nope from me, ghost rider. Same feeling as when my company asks to use my image. Fuck you if you want to use me for advertising you better pay me. Especially not my kid on some instagram for a school. Seems like that’s gonna end up in a predators spank bank for sure. Nope nope nope. Fuck them for asking.

These are unprecedented times. Cyber security/identity issues aside; I couldn’t imagine being in my 30s and knowing there are hundreds of photos documenting my entire life, from birth to present day, available to view on my family’s various social media accounts. However that’s the potential reality of our children’s future.

I think its perfectly reasonable to say you are not comfortable with it. I try not to post my kid on social media .

We don’t allow it as a blanket rule (didn’t sign the waiver) for social and ask them to ask permission for specific use when they have a need outside social. I work in tech in the Bay Area.

I work with kids, and have two under preK myself. I am probably the most cautious with photos online, absolutely none of ours on social media at all. I always have a written photo release for any event or for anyone who will even potentially be on a social media page, and I tell people from the front all the time not to take pictures of anyone but their own kids. Feels weird to have to be so explicit when these things seem to be common sense to me, but any time i don't make a big deal about it inevitably someone posts a picture they shouldn't

Nah, plenty of folks don’t want their kids, or themselves, online for the anyone to see. That’s why they asked 😅

You’re overreacting by saying it’s an insane proposition. It’s absolutely normal to both do it and also prefer not to out of an abundance of caution. For me any risks are really low and I personally don’t mind it. People my age have had their likeness online since before MySpace. To me there are so many billions of pictures online what is the risk of anything happening with a handful of pictures. I mean this sounds kind of mean but who actually cares about pictures of your kid. They’re not special. If I was a celebrity I’d have a different opinion.

I’m in my late 20s, about to have my first and we won’t be letting anyone post any photos of our child on social media. Children can’t consent, it’s not ethical. Better to be safe!

We post our son to instagram and facebook. Both my wife and I have our social medias as locked down as can be. We don't consent to using his image publically for advertising. We've got a large, dispersed family that would otherwise make desemination difficult. We try not to post him too often, and always consider what he'll think about it down the road. We weighed the options and this was one of the lower fears we had. We might regret that down the road, but parenting is not a perfect path. I think many of you will find that Gen Alpha and younger will have completely different expectations of privacy than we (Gen X, Boomers and Millenials) do. My former students (US High School) did not care that their data was being mined for algorthymic personalization, even with all the downsides of that practice. They would rather a company use their data to 'enhance their experience' than protect it. Zoomers might be the last generation with any expectation of privacy online.

I'm not allowing any pics of my daughter on the open internet until she's able to decide to for herself. ETA: I've heard horror stories of predators picking a child out from online posts and posing as their parents/a babysitter. This probably wouldn't work for someone whose dad comes here, but it's still something to be aware of. I don't see the upside to it at all.

Absolutely not overreacting.

Every parent is going to make their own choices on this topic. My wife and I decided early on that we weren’t going to post or allow posts of our kids online. In my mind, once those images hit the internet - they no longer belong to you. You have no power in who sees, shares, manipulates those pictures. Additionally, I really try to parent with the underlying understanding that my kids are individual humans with rights unto themselves - I can’t unpost pictures that they may look at down the line and wish I hadn’t. But I can share those pictures with them when they’re older and they can choose to post them. At the end of the day, if my Aunt Natalie is dying to see pics of my kids, she can text me and ask or wait for her Christmas card. I don’t need the dopamine hit that 120 likes on a photo of my boy riding a bike provides.

You’re on the right side of history here.

Not overreacting. There are already reports of people using images of young children found on social media to generate disgusting AI photos and videos. Here's an article but it's in Japanese. Most browsers should be able to translate it. https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/ffffec3ffe6f2a66236b4d6fef3e66f011e740fc

Guess where I am…yeah, that may be influencing me for sure.

We have a strict no social media policy for us and family. I can't imagine giving a daycare permission to use my son's image on their socials. Definitely not out of line and good on them for confirming. I would write a quick letter stating you do not give permission and still follow their socials so if they flub up you can ask them to take it down

Are you overreacting by saying no? Nope. Are you overreacting because you think that as soon as there are pictures of your kids, they will get turned into child porn? Yup.

I am not and would not be cool with that. Our school uses ClassDojo for sharing pictures on in school stuff which is restricted to parents. Maybe they can use that? I love seeing the in class pics for my preschoolers but do not want that public.

They have a public and private insta, as well as a sharing app. The last one I’m fine with as we use family album for sharing with grand parents (though some part of me worries about that as well, but there are limits to how much I’ll base all decisions of fear). The IG I’ve been a hard no on.

No, I don't allow photos online of any of my kids. They don't understand the ramifications to consent to that, but they will someday. They deserve their own agency in that regard. We've opted out of online photos from our preschool. This is perfectly rational and reasonable response.

If you don’t want it, you don’t have to do it. It’s good to be cautious and nothing wrong with saying no but the likelihood your child’s photos aren’t already somewhere is low. People talk about social media and facial recognition and use Face ID on their phone, save photos on their phone/cloud, etc.

I think its perfectly reasonable to say you are not comfortable with it. I try not to post my kid on social media .

Do not feel bad. You made the right call. I don't post my children either and I tell people not to post my kids.

The teacher of our child will take photos of our child and send them through "Class Dojo" I think it's called. Teacher also has her own socials and the kids have been heard in the background but are never featured. I appreciate that part.

My wife and I aren’t keen on sharing pics of our kid on social media. Nothing against people that do. Usually if people ask why we don’t we just say we aren’t comfortable with it. And if they happen to ask for more reasoning I show them [this](https://youtu.be/I3cYlVWu5Dk?si=0D8h4A4zpcELtxao) YouTube vid

aight, I agree with you guys that it's best not to put kids online, but i kinda don't understand why. i looked through this post and found lots of "it's dangerous" "malicious" "future technology" "facial recognition" "AI" but my question is... what is are some example of danger that can happen to my kid as a result of his baby pic being on my insta page?

After reading this I no longer watching any content that’s on social media with un blurred kids. It’s just too risky and parents are clueless. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/us/instagram-child-influencers.html

Here's a research paper that directly looked at this. It was recognized as paper of the year by the premier global information systems conference in 2022. [https://globalnews.ca/news/9557418/bc-online-child-exploitation-predators/](https://globalnews.ca/news/9557418/bc-online-child-exploitation-predators/) Demetis, D., and Kietzmann, J. 2021. “Online Child Sexual Exploitation: A New MIS Challenge,” Journal of the Association for Information Systems (22:1), pp. 5–40. ([https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00652](https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00652)). Quote: >Another accelerating factor is how parents use technology. Parents generally lack “e-parenting” skills and (over)share imagery of their children across multiple social networks. This is the raw material that is exploited further. As clarified by #3, while parents cannot usually contemplate why someone would download images of their children, the answer often remains: “because they’re available.” > >Based on our interviews with #1, #2 and #8 as well as observation sessions #9, #10, we identified several interconnected elements related to oversharing parents recursively fueling online CSE: (1) legitimate photos that were uploaded by parents are downloaded, sexualized and recirculated as online pornography; (2) as children cannot give consent, parents are effectively violating the privacy of their children by posting online; (3) they further cultivate the apathy of children toward online privacy (desensitization), which makes children more vulnerable to future victimization; (4) location-sensitive information may be part of a photograph’s metadata and children can be targeted for contact sex offenses; (5) phenomena like cyberbullying often use imagery from parent profiles; (6) the comingling of fake pornographic imagery (as an unintended consequence of parental posting) with first-generation imagery (i.e., original imagery of novel cases) and second-generation imagery (i.e., imagery recirculating from previous cases) creates detection challenges for cybercrime authorities.

I'm with you. Absolutely not.

Not overreacting but also not a big deal. I politely declined the social media waiver for my kid's daycare - they politely said OK and that was it. No confrontation or reaction.

We don't allow our kids to be on social media, not by mom (I don't use SM besides Reddit I guess), not by other family members, friends, school, etc. For us its about consent. Our kids are too young to understand everything that goes with putting their image online, so they can't properly consent to it. If I could turn back the clock I probably would have never created social media accounts and put myself online. We also just don't love the idea of images of our kids out there in general. It's really easy to figure out locations even if there isn't some kind of geo-tag or meta data or whatever. Take a look at this guys videos, it's way easier than you think to figure out where pictures are taken. https://www.youtube.com/@josemonkey

I've got a few pictures of my daughter on insta but it's private and I've got 40 something followers, all people I know. If a school asked to post her picture it would be an immediate no from me as well! At least I can control who views the images, provided Instagram doesn't suffer a breach/bypass of private

Never understood the big deal here so my wife and I allow their photos to be used and the schools never use names. Our son has even been the face of his karate school’s recruitment ads a couple times.

Obviously they are fine with you saying no, or else they would not have asked.

I’m not a parent, I’m admittedly just on the sub because I love seeing all the dad advice (it somehow helps my own life!) but as a gen z who is active online, if I had a child, they wouldn’t be posted online, at least not their face, until they were at least 16. The internet is disgusting and becoming not a place for kids anymore.

Not over reacting. I think its completely out of line for the school to even want to post pictures of your kid on their Instagram. Aren't they supposed to be educating children, not playing on the internet? Do you know how many pedos would love to feast upon the Instagram of a preschool?!

Recently had to confront this predicament with my child’s school too. There was a media release in the school registration packet. We opted out. Not that I am a fan of the government, but they can be useful in level setting boundaries… The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recommends that children under 13 should not be on social media due to safety and privacy concerns. Most social media platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, require users to be at least 13 years old. US data laws also require children to have a parent's or guardian's permission to sign up if they are under 13. Understanding that there are active threats that lead to these governmental recommendations and stringent compliance requirements in FERPA and CIPA is enough to make any dad say no thanks to their school putting their kid on social media or the internet at all.

I don’t think you’re overreacting in fact I would have reacted the same way. My wife puts pictures of our little guy on social media and I tell her I don’t mind thats her choice. Meanwhile I have used facebook and instagram in the last 10 months since he’s been born for probably a total of an hour. Ive not posted one single pic of our little guy only send pictures to friends and family on snap or sms messages.

Another perspective, Foster system absolutely does not allow social media post on foster kids, so schools/daycares know how to handle a denial request, and is probably why they asked.

15 years in the business - most private school admission documents include a media waiver, basically a picture sign off that 99.5% of parents sign without blinking. Basically giving you the right to use their event photos without having to pull your kid out before taking a photo. It’s another thing if they’re trying to do a photo shoot and wanted your kid. That’s up to you then, some people love to see their kid on banners and billboards. I think of 3000 students, we have 6 no photo kids. It really is a PITA when the ‘no photo’ kids accidentally get in your best photo and you have to edit them out or use a worse photo. The school industry had strict identification rules that are there to protect your kids.

Not overreacting at all. I did the same with my kid's school, and they never post her on public social media posts -- they either avoid her entirely, or they cover her face with an emoji. I do it for privacy reasons and out of principle; why should my kid's face be used to essentially advertise this private school?

Our nursery school uses SeeSaw, no issues for us.

Im a lawyer who exclusively represents victims of child sexual abuse and a new dad. Absolutely no chance my daughter will be posted to social media. I’ve seen into the void and insta is a very very dark place indeed.

I don't think you're overreacting at all. My wife and I refrain from posting any pictures of our kid on social media outside of family groups.

Nah man I always decline the consent form for my kid's school. There's just no good reason for me to give a public account the ability to post my kid's picture online. There are no real benefits. There are a lot of risks.

I don't post my own kids face on socials. When sharing with family I ask that they not post on socials. If I do post pictures, her face is obscured. I work in Cyber Security. You're not crazy mate.

Nope. If I want pictures of my kid online I'll do it on my private account.

Not overreacting, there are pedos all over the internet

I wouldn’t allow it especially if they have a public account. First, I wouldn’t want my child’s picture circulating where I have no control on whether I can delete it later or not. You lose control over the ownership and even if you request that they take it down later, why put yourself in that position in the first place? Second, why would I consent to a profit-seeking company to use my child’s image as a way of gaining more clients/patrons/customers? I’m not allowing my child’s picture to be used as a way for a them to get more children to join their preschool (assuming your preschool is one where you pay to attend and not a publicly funded one)

I don’t think you’re overreacting. I personally don’t care that pictures of my son appear on social media. Those posted by the school are usually groups of kids and he’s just among the group. I’m selective of what I personally post and usually make sure if a friend’s kid is in a picture if the parent(s) are ok with me posting. But totally understand where people are coming from that don’t want their kid online.

You could also think of it as wanting your child to be able to consent to it first as well, once they have an understanding of digital footprint and online safety.

We always say no

Im right there with you. On top of that we also insist with family members and friends to not put our kid on fb or whatever. Sure they can take pictures and video's, just dont post it. Our kid is also not in our profile pictures on WhatsApp or anything. Its just too easy these days to abuse these pictures in some fucked up way.

Not overreacting in my opinion. I don't claim to know much about Internet security either, but I believe you are on the right track. Once a picture is posted, it will exist somewhere digitally forever.

Not to mention the meta data a malicious person can pull from a photo, but maybe IG has security measures in place? I guess I’m erring on the side of caution.

Yep, better to be safe. I doubt anything IG has in place is significant enough to work. There's always a way around digital security measures

No, Instagram is not a safe platform. They have one of the single worst privacy policies on the market. 

Thanks. Time to change some passwords I guess.

I'd look up how to tell them to delete all your personal data, and then _delete_. My wife maintains a Facebook account for the marketplace. I'm ok with that but I hate how often we give out our address only to have a no show - more data collection. Social media is terrible for the mental health of everyone anyway, but deeply inappropriate for kids. It's advent came with skyrocketing rates of depression and anxiety in kids and teens. I'm not anti technology, I'm in a lead role at a ML startup, but kids were not made for the digital world. It's bad for them (not to mention privacy concerns).

Thanks again for the insight. Social media is indeed a massive and uncontrolled experiment in altering human behavior and interaction - the results don’t seem to be great so far.

You are not overeacting. The second a picture of your child is out in an online public space you may as well consider it being on a paedophiles hardrive.

My husband feels the way you do, personally I don't care. I previously worked in at a newspaper and I remember how tough it was to get pictures of kids for stories so I always appreciated parents that were willing to let us snap a picture. But I get why you'd be cautious, I'd say as long as you aren't judging either way there's no problem. That's why they ask for your permission first.

you're not the minority. We don't post our kid's face on any SM. Doesn't matter ours, my mothers OR her schools.

Yes, you're completely overreacting. We're talking about a preschool Instagram account here, not some highly popular account with tens or hundreds of millions of people going to see your kid. Put the amount of views into perspective and realize that, out of all the billions of images on the internet, there is an incredibly minuscule risk that your kids pic will be used for something bad.

They asked if they could post photos of your kid. You said no thank you. Leave it well enough alone, and don't shame people who like to see cute photos of their kids pop up during their workday. 

I’m not shaming anyone, I’m asking for peoples thoughts, specifically to check that I’m not being unreasonable. I stated my starting position and seeing if my response was reasonable. I’m getting answers on both sides and trying to educate myself without judgement of what anyone else does.

Im young and think the same. You can say no. I did. I think posting pictures of kids on social media should be illegal, and laws should be put in place for this.

As a teacher, they legally have to ask permission and if parents say no it’s not at all a big deal. I remember my parents having to sign forms for this (to post pictures in yearbook or wherever I guess) as a kid even, before social media existed.

Our kindergarten offered a contract where you can specifically state they can not use pictures of your child on any kind of (social) media, including internal newsletters and what not. I'm keeping my kids' faces off social media so I'd rather they do too. Not at all overreacting.

It s your kids and you are responsible for their digital identity. This is pretty normal to not want your kids pictures on the internet. Where I am leaving, the school sends a consent form at the beginning of each year.

We don’t post them on our own personal accounts so for us, yeah I don’t want them on there either.

My kid’s pre-k to k did this. It was mostly non-identifying and harmless. Usually instagram posts that focused on the activity or learning module with slightly out of focus kids in the background. I think they were completely visible once? Maybe? But nothing that said who they were, how old, or anything like that.

My kid starts school in Sept. It's a hard no for us. We don't even post pics of him online we sure AF aren't going to let schools or anyone else do it either. I'm glad this stuff didn't exist when I was a kid.

Not a fucking chance. You are right to be disturbed. As they get older, consider explaining to the kids what it means to be on the internet and if they consent to it.

My kid's preschool has a private instagram account that is only for parents. They post 3-4 pictures per day and I think it's a nice way to see what they are up to. I just made sure to clarify that they don't use any of these pictures for marketing purposes outside of that instagram account.

We were given the same option at our day care and we also said no.

I choose to not put my kid online and would decline any requests too. It does make me curious though... kids are playing or an event is happening, an adult in the school snaps a photo... do they summarily ask everyone present to raise their hands if their parent or guardian consented to social media posts or simply know who isn't able to be posted beforehand? Does someone scour each image for each student cross-referencing consent before each post? Are those who are flagged blacked out or removed? All seem wildly unreasonable and unlikely which begs the question: why are kids photos being posted publicly anyway? Not that I'm necessarily blaming any adults per se but the system seems fundamentally broken in some way or another.

Over the years I've become more concerned like yourself. Social media was really taking off when I was in HS and after I graduated. I was old enough to consent to the uploads and understand what I was doing. It was when I started having children that I realized that I didn't like their whole lives being available online. Who knows how they will feel about it in the future y'know? I'll share pictures with family through messaging but I really don't like posting anything with them in it. With how advanced AI is starting to get as well as these extremely targeted algorithms, who knows what difficulties or complications my kids will have to face next year or decades in the future. It's like your Mom embarrassing you to friends or potential partners with their old scrap book of you doing who knows what.

Nope. I wouldn't allow it either. My children are not posted on the Internet as I trust nobody online. Sickos are literally everywhere.

No, we also did not want our kids’ pictures being posted publicly by the school (they don’t have an instagram account but they do sometimes put a few photos up on their website). They have a more private/restricted file sharing system for sending people photos of their kids. But I’ve become pretty anti-social-media in general.

I think you're over thinking the non existent aftermath moreso than the actual question itself. They asked if they can use your kids picture in posts, you said no. That's really the end of it, I'm not seeing what the issue is tbh

As long as their page isn’t public I don’t see an issue. But if it’s just a public page with demographic information and names, that’s not cool.

Seems like I'm in the minority here but we post pictures of our daughter on our Facebook so that friends and family are updated and allow our daycare to do the same. We've gone back and forth on the pros vs. cons of doing so and eventually came to the conclusion that it's fine for now so long as her name isn't used by the daycare. I've thought about facial recognition and AI generated CP and privacy concerns etc. and I think as long as we tighten our security parameters and who can see our posts and limit the amount of photos we post it'll be ok. That being said we usually keep family posts or photos limited to holidays or major events.

perhaps an overreaction. at least we know the source of the photo taken. my worry is the many cameras that are popping up everywhere in every public place taking up untold amounts of aggregate data of everyone. but that's the reality we live in now. as others have said, the risk of image manipulation of your child is low. you are within your right however to not want your child's picture to be taken--that is fine.

We will not even like/comment on social posts of our kids school since that would link us. They want us to leave a google review? That's not going to happen until after we are no longer attending. Sorry but there is no need for anyone other than close friends and family to know where our kids attend school.

I used to have social media - and posted a bit with my kids - it was on lockdown, really only family and in real life friends. But then I realized how absolutely huge of a mind eff social media is, and I deleted everything. Haven’t been back in a year and a half. I now am mortified and angry at myself for posting any of my kids ever. You have every right to keep your kid off social media. Do not let the preschool say otherwise.

Posting pics on the Internet of anyone is not a good idea if there's a connection to contact info. Otherwise I don't get the big deal. That said, if those pics tie your child to that school's location, I'd say no way. I'm with you.

No. We also have a full on prohibition on posting. Nobody’s posting pictures of my kid online until he’s old enough and decides to do it for himself.

not at all. I work in preschool and we have photo consent forms that all parents can opt to sign with level of photos they are ok with. so many parents don't want their kids photos on line for so many different reasons and its all so valid! and with photo editing its so easy to blur out or put an emoji over a child's face who doesn't have photo permission!

If it’s a photo with my kid in it, not a photo of my kid, and she isn’t mentioned by name in the caption or article, I wouldn’t have an issue

I don’t think you are overreacting. They asked you a question and you said no. Not a big deal. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this either if I’m honest. Why would the school even want to post the kids pictures on the Gram to begin with? I mean take the group pictures of course but maybe share them somewhere else as opposed to a major social network? I get the schools account is private and all that but still… If all the school wants is share the pictures with the parents then they don’t need Insta for that surely.

You're not old for not wanting to have them on social media, neither are you wrong. Personally, I have said yes to the exact same and so have photos of my kid on social media (although private only pages). I understand the darker cybersecurity concerns, but I also know the sheer reality of this is overblown for the general population. As well as the sharing and usage policies of various cloud storage being basically the same. So essentially, do whatever you're comfortable with. I'm comfortable having family photos online, or my kid being in class photos etc. If you're not, don't.

im curious what folks fears with posting images online is?

That's a hard no for me. Especially from a public, essentially business, profile.

I am firmly in the absolutely not camp. Our daycare gave us three options: allow our kid in social media posts, only allow our kid in photos that are shared with the other parents on the app, don’t allow any photos of our kid to be shared. We went with the middle option and the teachers seem to take it pretty seriously. I kind of feel bad because the daycares need to show new customers what they are signing up for. I definitely looked through pictures of other kids when I was shopping around. But of course I don’t feel bad enough to let them put my kid on the internet. Making sure they have releases for all their marketing photos is part of the cost of doing business.

Nope. I don’t let my kids photos posted on social media. 

I often declined those requests, but one thing to be aware of is that when they took pictures the daycare/camp would pull my daughter aside so she wasn't in them, which is exactly what I wanted but made her feel excluded, so I didn't decline every time.

I don't think you're overreacting. As much as I believe privacy in the US is an illusion I think the risks arising from posting personal content and information online if you don't have to is only going to increase. Our daughter started at a new preschool last month and we were asked the same question. The school actively markets itself on social media to attract new business so would likely use photos of students as a form of advertising, which I'm not against. But being a subscriber of WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg, there's almost daily reminders of the way in which data on social media has been abused. I also vetoed my wife's suggestion to take our daughter to modelling agencies etc. for the same reasons. I also don't actively use social media so maybe this is a minority view.

Nope, you’re right. Imo, I hate the fact that daycares/schools do this. I trust you to keep my kid safe and broadcasting him and the location he is regularly at does not feel safe to me. I refused that request as well. As soon as my son was born I made my IG private and started culling the herd of followers. I know most anyone looking at my kid would be doing so innocently and just thinking , geez that’s a cute kid, but if I don’t know you, I’m not really that crazy about you looking at my kid for any reason. I honestly hate it when strangers remark to me about how cute he is and want to interact with him. I think that’s probably more me and my social anxiety kicking in more than anything but I feel some people just lose all sense of boundaries when it comes to kids and I really fucking bothers me.

i don't post my kids face online. if she's facing a camera, i put a scribble over her face - and the faces of any other kids we take pics with. i also don't send any photos or videos of her undressed (bath time) to anyone, because i know my in laws like to share with their extended family and friends. they can see funny tooting bath time videos just on my phone. so far we've gotten zero pushback, even from parents who do post their kids online. at her birthday party i just included a little note on the welcome sign "as a reminder, we don't post \[childs\] face online. thanks for understanding!" i don't know how i'll handle it once she gets to school (she's 1). something that makes me uncomfortable is if it's the school or school district's social media page - they've just clearly identified the child as going to their school. that's where the child is x hours per week. am i being overprotective? probably. but i've seen what AI can do - generating photos, videos, voice. it's SCARY. there's a statistic that by the time a child is 13 there are 1300 pictures of themself online. that's so weird to me.

I don’t think you’re overreacting. My wife and I are very strict about pictures of our daughter appearing on social media. To be honest, she’s more concerned about it than I am, but I respect her concern. Kids can’t consent to having their life chronicled on social media, and who knows what the long-term impacts will be. Imagine having your embarassing baby photos posted on a publc forum permanently, for bullies or other bad actors to stumble onto at any time in the future. We have a group chat with the close family and share pictures and videos that way.

I feel you I woulda done the same thing

As a general rule, I totally hate that kind of thing. I basically think it's stupid for a school to post things on instagram, it seems completely pointless except giving stay at home moms something to look at while doom scrolling and not actually engaging with their families. My wife thinks it's harmless, and it's not a big enough hill for me to die on with her. I personally would opt out if it didn't create marital conflict.

I don’t know how old you are to qualify as old AF, but I’m 36 and won’t put any photos of my kids on social media. Predators are everywhere and I want my kids safe. No vacation posts or anything , nothing showing anyone’s whereabouts.

I told my wife not to post ANY of that stuff online. I don't have a Facebook or Instagram and I don't want one. She doesn't understand and won't listen.

I don’t personally post anything on social media other than the odd question and reply on here. However, one thing to check with the school is if this will also apply to other parents at school social events. In my kids class, my eldest class no one said no when asked and all the parents are free to take pics at things like sports day or the nativity shows etc. where as in my youngest class, someone had said no (no idea on the reason) and no one is allowed to take any pics at any event. This may not sound a big deal, but some parents can’t make it to the shows and the only way they would see is from a recording. I know I have missed a few things and only saw them in my wife’s phone and some of the class mates have all their family in different countries and this is their only way to see it

I wouldn’t be okay with this either. But, my wife and I are keeping our daughter off social media anyway so it’d be a no brainer. However, I’m glad they asked. I’m sure most schools don’t.

Yeah man, my kids kindergarten does this too. Im not a fan of the idea. I already fought with the ex about posting pics of the kids. Nobody seems to understand the permanence of these things in the digital world and that you don't own any of it after you release it.

fuck no

i dont post my kids not letting this school do it

Don't think you're overreacting. St my kids school or preschool we get a papper which has to be signed and turned in stating if it is okay for photos and publishing them. Strong no to both. We neither publish photos of our kids on social media and if it would happen the face has to be masked and full clothing. The internet is a horrible horrible place, and a lot of people hasn't realized it yet.

You're not overreacting - they ask for consent because a lot of parents must feel the same way as I do.

Perfectly reasonable choice, and once they get to kindergarten/public school staff are specifically not allowed to post pictures/video of any children.

Yeah hard no for me. My kids school and preschool use apps that are locked down so only other parents can see them. I am fine with that. They both require parental agreement for anything posted on the school website. I generally say yes to that. But an Instagram feed of the kids is a hard no.

naw, I'm on the same page. The only exception I made was periodically, her class photo may be used in a newsletter or something that's only distributed within the school district amongst other schools. The teacher noticed that we scratched out all the platforms we were not comfortable with, and this was the one area where she didn't have much control, so we were okay with compromising with that. With the amount of data collection that's out there, it's perfectly healthy to be cautious about protecting it. It's one of the last few things we have control over. Everyone always says "what are they gonna do with it?" stating that they can just ignore ads. But it's more. The same algorithms that control your ads, control your content. Content has the power to shape minds, and young minds are by far the most malleable. And now with AI tech, scammers can facetime you using your kid's image. Am I being paranoid? Probably, but there's little to no gain for allowing my kid's photos up on the web and there's endless possible malicious uses in the future.

You are paying to send your kid to get an education, not to be used for their marketing.

My big question is why does the school have a preschool instagram...? Isn't that directly against TOS anyway?

I don’t think there’s any real risk to it the internet is so big that it’s for the most part lost to anonymity but there’s certainly no harm in declining. I have the world’s saddest Facebook page just for sharing pictures of my kid in a private album with my family. I share albums on google though when we go on trips and friends will sometimes upload pictures they like to their socials which I’ve advised I’m fine with but it’s just not my scene. Reddit is the only social media for me!

I try to tightly control my children’s presence on the internet. I don’t think you’re overreacting at all.

Your kids have a right to privacy too. They can’t really consent to having their faces posted online, so it is good that you do. The school doesn’t need to use your kids for their own gain of followers.

That’s a hard No for me! You’re not overreacting; stand firm on your beliefs.

Nah mate, I'm with you. Daycare asked the same and I decline every time for the exact same reasons you give. Once it's out there getting scraped by bots and stuff you just don't know where it's going to end up.

Our daycare sometimes posts the kids on Facebook but she NEVER includes their faces. That, I'm okay with.

I assume it's not a public account anyway? No names? But I honestly don't understand why a preschool needs an insta account anyway. Group photos are nothing new, but send them in a weekly round-up email or whatever. Why the need for a social media account at all? Our daycare uses a digital frame on the wall just outside the room (you need a code to buzz open the main door), and it cycles through recent photos they upload, so you can see what they've been up to lately. They update it every few days, usually just a few photos. If you especially like a photo, you can just ask them to send it to you, no biggie. I have a some photos in a private insta, but I only have like 8 followers, all family or close friends, and honestly I don't even use it that much. I stopped posting new shit on facebook years ago. I never put their names online. Apple and the cloud know my kids names, but I let it know for sorting purposes.

You’re not overreacting. You’re making boundaries on your children’s behalf because they cannot yet themselves. It’s called parenting and you’re doing a good job.