Perspective on Children's Photos

[tegan]

I think that it is unwise to have a paranoic fear of danger related to children's photos on the Internet. Children's photos have been and continue to be used in all media from newspapers, magazines, advertising, public relations, through to television throughout Canada and the World.

I have had photos of children in national media and television productions with children broadcast throughout large regions and sold throughout the world. This has presented no danger whatsoever to the children involved.

Basically you cannot protect a child against all the possible dangers, no matter what you do as a parent. You need to assess the risk in a realistic manner and then take action or not. No matter what you do or don't do, the unthinkable can happen. Recognize that fact. Realize too that your child has to learn how to realistically assess and make decisions on his/her own at some point too, related to personal safety. If they don't make the right decisions, then you may have to deal with that as well.

Tegan

[AcadieLibre]

I belong to a Photo Forum and they have a Business area where those who do this for a living post and I see tons of kids photos all the time they are usually Children Portrait Photographers and then you get a lot of beginners posting photos of their kids because usually they are the handiest Models around and when they are young they are cute, then they become teens and not so cute lol. I am at a loss at peoples Paranoia over posting their childrens photos online, but to each their own I guess.

[Marko]

I'm not a parent so I'm not talking from experience.

What I do know is that MANY people feel the Internet is unsafe and full of pedofiles. For me, this is the product of media hype and is the same type of hype that makes everyone feel unsafe these days.

Terrible things do happen it's true but just like the chance of us winning the lottery are almost zero the chance of having something terrible happen to our children because we post a pic on a photo website is almost zero.

I mean obviously if any member posted a pic of their child in an 'unsavourary' way, I would make an administrative call and remove the photo. But I've been looking at photo forums for YEARS and I have never ever seen 1 photo of a child in a compromised situation.

Of course there are scumbags on the internet. But there are even MORE scumbags not on the Net. They are in public and can see children in real life. Are we not going to let our children outside because of this?

Personally I see almost ZERO risk in posting a personal picture of a child on a photo forum or general website the Net. People usually choose nicknames in forums and post clothed pics of their kids.

All that said...of course it is a parent's right to be overprotective.

I think this is a very interesting discussion....and may well be good material for a podcast or blog post.

[AcadieLibre]

I am a parent of 3 so I do speak with some perspective on this. My wife, my daughter post photos all the time of our family on there Facebook or whatever they use. My kids are older now ranging from 19 to 10 and I am more comfortable with them posting photos then I am of them using real last names or what I think is personal information. They are more at risk having their names, addresses and other information about them bought and sold through marketers then they have about photos of them being used for anything. I am also unsure what normal healthy happy children photos would be used for anyway. As with anything using common sense goes a long way.

[tegan]

You're right, Acadie Libre, personal information is more risky than photos on the Internet. One person on a forum discoverd his computer was infected, so after fixing the problem he sent out a massive e-mail to everyone he had contacted including me, warning of the virus. Google picked up the e-mail in its program and my real name and e-mail ended up available from Google.

The result was that I was literarly inundated with tons of spam for several months before I finally discovered the problem. I closed out my e-mail and the server went off the net.

Worse than that was a colleague of mine, who had her identity stolen and credit reputation abused through personal information available on the net.

Sure photos are stolen off the net, but given the millions that are available, why would someone steal yours unless it was absolutely spectacular and then you would probably sell it rather than post it anyway.

As to sickos, I would suspect they are in chat rooms or on their own networks rather than looking at normal pictures of children on a photographic web site.

Tegan