“Don’t post anything about me on social media without asking me first”

The other day my 15-year old son asked me for a photo of some biscuits that I had butchered instead of baking. Let’s just say they looked nothing like the picture in the recipe, in fact they looked nothing like biscuits. I was curious as to the reason he wanted this photo – was he now old enough to shame me on the internet? Was he going to out my lack of biscuit formation to the wider community? Had I taught him nothing about privacy or discretion?

I’ve not been a big sharer of his image online, but I consider myself lucky he was born well before the age of Facebook and so my own desire to show him off, was not a factor in his youth. I had to bore the people around me instead, and bore them I did.

When he misbehaved, or was uber cute (or generally acted like a kid) I didn’t have the opportunity to photograph it and get a reaction or advice from other parents who had undoubtedly been through the very same thing. I had to read books and chat to real live mums about their experiences.

But now, as Facebook and Instagram have became part of our daily newsfeeds, I’ve been invited right into the homes and conversations of thousands of “friends” I’ve never met. I “know” children who don’t know I exist, it feels a bit like the door is being opened on to the part of that child’s life that they have no say in and no control over.

Every time I bring this up in public I have mums of young children telling me how proud they are and how they see no harm in sharing the joy of a beautiful child with others. I get that. I love the smile of a baby as much as the next over maternal woman. But I also know that when your children are small, when they are babies – the line between mum and baby is sometimes hard to draw. It does seem inconceivable that some day this gorgeous chubby cheeked angel in a onesie is going to be a surly teenager protective of her privacy and her own digital footprint.

A recent University of Michigan study found that children aged 10 to 17 “were really concerned” about the ways parents shared their children’s lives online.

The New York Times reports

“…university researchers asked children and parents to describe the rules they thought families should follow related to technology. In most cases, parents and children agreed — don’t text and drive; don’t be online when someone wants to talk to you. But there was one surprising rule that the children wanted that their parents mentioned far less often: Don’t post anything about me on social media without asking me.
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As in, no pictures of them asleep in the back of the car. No posts about their frustration with their homework. That victory picture after the soccer game? Maybe. The frustrated rant about the fight you just had over laundry? No way.

I know that it’s hard to get that okay from a three-year old. But I know the three-year old has the same rights to have his parents protect him, his image and his right to privacy. In fact Facebook vice president Jay Parikh spoke in November last year about implementing a feature that automatically warns you before you share photos of your children.

And then there was a warning from the branch of the French Armed Forces in charge of public safety after the recent Motherhood Challenge telling parents “Be careful! We remind you that posting photos of your kids on Facebook is not without danger, it is important to protect the privacy of minors and their image on social networks.”

PetaPixel reports :

In an interview with Le Figaro, French legal expert Éric Delcroix says that baby photos that are being published online today could one day lead to lawsuits by the children after they grow up if they accuse their parents of violating their privacy.

If convicted under France’s privacy laws, parents who share photos of another person (e.g. their kids) without their permission can face up to 1 year in jail and a fine of €45,000 (~$49,345).

Delcroix argued that people should think about how their children will feel later in life about images of them as infants being posted on Facebook.

My child is 15, I have had ample time to think about how my use of his image without his consent is literally not cool. He is my son but he is his own person and while I am responsible for looking after him, I don’t own him. Or his image.

Maybe I am just being soft on him because he wanted to show off the biscuits I made rather than laugh about them – and of course he never posted the image online because it was pretty lame anyway. Respect.