It's about the never-ending parenting debate about children's photos on Facebook, Instagram and Co! This is the content that was published with a black and white image in which you can see a girl with a school bag. The girl's face was pixelated except for her right eye.

Back to school:
You're on Facebook and an unknown guy or woman sent you a friend request.
You don't know the person, but the profile picture is kind of nice and you have mutual friends, so you just accepted the request. Months later: Your little daughter has her first day of school, you are overwhelmed with joy because she looks so pretty in her dress with her big school bag, you take a photo of her in front of the elementary school gate and post it on Facebook share it with your friends and family.
"Julia's first day of school!" Meanwhile, the unknown guy you added as a friend a while ago and long since forgotten has already saved the picture and sent it to X other grown men around the world on some platform on the dark web. Image title: “German girl, 6 years old, blonde and blue-eyed, €3,000” Not only did you unknowingly supply a picture of your daughter to pedophiles and human traffickers, no, these criminals also know that her name is Julia and that she goes to xy elementary school goes.
It is now easy to locate your daughter, address her by her familiar name and use a clever pretext to grab her before you come to pick her up yourself. Hundreds of children are missing in Germany. Prevent it! NO CHILDREN'S PICTURES ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM.

Emotions!

It is clear that such content evokes an emotion in many users, which is understandable.
The reactions are often clear: “Photos of children have absolutely no place on Facebook” or “There are so many crazy people out there who delight in pictures of children” and “It’s your own fault if your child disappears, cry but not around.”

This gives rise to long debates about how dangerous it is to publish children's pictures.

Should children's photos be published on social media?

We have also repeatedly warned against publishing children's photos. But in the end, every warning is just an urgent request to behave responsibly.

Of course, parents decide for themselves whether and how many children's photos they want to publish on their accounts. In the end, we can only appeal to pay attention to the privacy of the people depicted.

We should and must differentiate!

We are certainly all aware that there is not someone lurking behind every posting with a picture of a child who is misusing the picture. However, any potential dangers should also be taken into account. There are always a few questions that come up:

Do we really have to put a black bar on the eyes and cover the children's faces with oversized yellow emojis and then publish these photos at the end? Isn't it possible that when the children are older, they won't even be surprised at what their parents actually did with their picture?

Maybe later on the children won't care whether they appear in their parents' and grandparents' posts, as they grow up with a completely different understanding of the Internet. They experience a public that their parents never knew as children.

At this point, the following also applies: In the end, each individual argument can be reversed 1:1.

And now?

With many topics that have to do with education, this seemingly endless online debate is always characterized by a very tough discussion among users. It is clear that parents who have published photos of their child on Facebook and CO have made a conscious decision to do so. Something like this doesn't just happen by chance!

Children's photos and the topic: Right to one's own image and personal rights

Yes, children also have personal rights. This includes, above all, the right to privacy as well as anonymity and the right to one's own image. As the name (personal rights) suggests, only the person concerned can dispose of it themselves. In other words, parents cannot simply decide which pictures of their child they want to publish. But a child must be able to understand this. This is also referred to as the so-called “capability of insight”. This in turn means that small children cannot consent to publication, but usually only children aged 14 and over. Before the age of 14, the image rights and, above all, the associated responsibility lie with the parents.

Our tips on the topic: Children's pictures on the Internet

  1. Always remember: You are a role model, so teach your children how to handle personal data on the Internet responsibly, because how can you teach your child the increasingly important careful handling of personal data on the Internet if your child's life is already completely online ?
  2. If you publish a picture of your child, avoid including the full name, place of residence, school, etc. In other words, the data that is related to the photo shown.
  3. Please avoid pictures of the child where you can see him or her in an inappropriate or embarrassing situation.
  4. Once the children have reached a certain age, include your children in this discussion and talk about how to deal with children's pictures on the internet! And especially:
  5. Checks the privacy settings on Facebook and CO. If you post a picture, you should only do so for “friends”, but never “publicly”.

And now?

Users argue: Some are strictly against publishing children's pictures on social media. The others don't care and would like to show off their children with pride. what is right, what is wrong? We can only answer this question to a limited extent. We are of the opinion that parents who want to show their child should, at least in principle, protect their children's privacy as much as possible. If you want to put a black bar over your eyes, then you should do it. If you want to pixelate the face or put an emoji over it, that's OK.

However, what you should do is…

You should protect the child's personal rights and heed the tips given! However, you shouldn't "walk" through the internet in panic and hysterics and blame other parents who publish your children's photos, because that's not really helpful! This is also part of being a role model, because you have to strengthen children, no matter what the topic. With hysteria you probably achieve the opposite. Which, by the way, generally applies to raising children.

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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )