I received Amy’s enrollment forms for school recently and as I was looking them over, I noticed a new part.
I give permission for my child’s photo and full name to be used on the school website: YES/NO.
Immediately alarm bells began to ring and I circled NO.
Because, and here is my reasoning:
I am Amy’s mother and I write about her on the Internet. I don’t use her surname, nor do I mention where we live, or what school she’ll be attending. These are safety things.
But, even though I write about Amy – I don’t want her full name and photo used by the school on their website, EVER. It’s only a small step from someone finding out which school she is at and her full name, to being able to track her down and I don’t want that.
Am I being paranoid? Maybe a little, but look, I earn my money on the ‘nets and I know how insane some people can be here. I don’t want anyone being able to track us down at home, or being able to find Amy at school.
And I’m a little pissed actually, because you’d think that the school would think of that and not use full names and photos of students. That said, I applaud the fact that I can refuse permission for Amy’s photo and work to be available online and I’m glad we have that option. I’ll certainly make full use of that.
I recently found out that you could find my home address online, thanks to a find people for free website. You can bet your arse I was on the phone to my phone provider that day, getting my number delisted. I’m pissed to find that while I’m delisted from the phone book, the website still has my details available.
And god knows, when Amy starts school and I do the obligitory OMG my baby! in uniform! going off to school! post, you can bet money on the fact that the photos will be in black and white and that the school logo will be blurred beyond repair. I’m paranoid enough to not even want the school uniform colours known.
So, my questions:
Do you think I’m being oversensitive?
How does your school handle their online presence and your child’s photos? Did you get a chance to opt out of having photos and work available online?
Have you ever thought about this before – or do you think that, as bloggers, privacy issues and this kind of thing are naturally at the front of our minds?
Email to a friend
{ 35 comments }
Annie’s school sent home a A4 page of internet safety guidelines that all students had to sign at the beginning of the year. With it came the instructions that no-one could be referred to online by their surname. So you can mention first names of fellow students but not their surnames.
Which is interesting because I’m Facebook friends with some of the grade 6 kids at school and as you know when you do the @ thing on Facebook it links your status to another person – using their full name.
That directly violates the internet safety form all students were required to sign.
I get a similar letter for the kids’ school here. There are like 9 separate things that you have to allow or not with the use of photos & names from the specific school newsletter to the county wide all schools website. I say no to all of them. I blog about my kids under aliases & never mention my location. I don’t want the school undoing my careful efforts to keep their IDs off the net as long as possible. When they are 18 they can make that choice for themselves. Until then I say no way.
When you were at school Veronica I didn’t allow your name or photo to be published on the school website at all and I wasn’t even connected to the net myself then. xx
I meant to say you aren’t being paranoid at all. It is just good common sense. I also don’t think that primary school children should have facebook accounts either. What on earth do 8 or 9 year old children need a facebook account for?
I personally don’t have my own name attached to my blog. I like being somewhat anonymous. I realise that certain places require my e-mail to leave a comment, and that my e-mail has my name in it, but I only leave comments like that where I trust the person viewing the information not to share it.
The internet is full of a lot of people that are NOT to be trusted. Even though I don’t have my name attached to my blog, I’m sure there are ways of connecting the dots, and figuring out who I am, if you have the necessary skills…
I don’t think I would ever allow someone else to post my personal information and photos on the internet, even if it was through a school, and especially not my children’s if I have any.
Not paranoid at all.
SMART
Here in NJ, the rules keep changing. This year as my son enters high school, he and I have to attend a 3 hour lecture on just such internet concerns. They sent home reams of paperwork that we have to read and sign. I don’t think you are being paranoid at all. As long as you understand that you can only do so much – there will always be some freak out there that will have the skills to find out anything about anybody. In todays online world very little information is truly safe and secure.
ARG!! Don’t write that the website has your details available! Now I’m tempted to google and look for wallabies in your back yard! Nooooooo!!!
Seriously, this is one of the reasons I use a pseudonym. Though I suppose in hindsight it’s generic enough that 500 other people are also blogging under the same one.
PS. If you let your boy go to school, the military recruiters will probably get his info. I know they set up stands at school along with the college folks on fair days. I told “Patrick” that he is not enlisting. No way.
I don’t think you are being paranoid but I do think you have specific cause for your concern being that you have a presence on the internet and you earn an income from it, as you say, there are some crazys out there! I personally don’t worry about blogging under my own name but the issue about my children’s names in the future is a contentious one that I will spend a lot of time thinking about over the coming years!
Agreed
Emily will be the same.
When I read your title I actually thought you were posting about the facebook pornography ring which has been mentioned in the news. Well it has here anyway!
No, I don’t think you’re being paranoid exactly, although I think the overall risk for most kids is fairly low (but not zero, of course) – it’s kids where there are custody disputes, family violence etc that are most at risk by insouciant publication of their details online. In your case, I would agree that two things bump your risk level a bit higher than normal.
a) You have a fairly high-profile and well-read public blog where you discuss some but not all details about your life and children, including their first names
b) You sometimes blog about controversial subjects that have the potential to rouse opposing views, some of which might be held by persons of less than ideal stability (trying to avoid pejorative words about mental status here but I think you know where I am coming from)
In our case, A’s school asks for permission to publish only photographs of children in activity / group situations, with no identifying details at all, including first names or grade levels, on the website. I gave that permission, as I felt that in *our* case, there was no real risk associated with doing so.
On my own blogs, as you know, I am very cautious about what photos I publish and what details I give. When A started school I posted about it and included a photo – of her back
It would not have been possible to ascertain her school from the picture.
The difficulty can sometimes be to remember that obsessive people are perfectly capable of investing the time and energy in piecing together all the little things we write into a tapestry of identification. While I’ve never said where in Melbourne I live, where I work, where my husband works, where A goes to school or E to kinder, the fact is, just by writing about my life over an extended period and by commenting on other blogs / in forums etc, I know that it *would* be possible for someone who was smart enough and determined enough to get a bead on us.
Reality is, though, that kind of obsessive tracking down is relatively rare, and caution and prudence reduces the risk to a very low level in “normal” cases. I am not going to live my life in terror of very remote dangers (I’d never turn the ignition key on my car if I worried about things to that extent, as really, the danger of serious harm to both my kids and myself is far, far, far greater in a vehicle than from any of my online activities).
This is such an interesting question. I use pseudonym’s when I blog about my kids to protect their privacy but hand’t given much thought to the school internet access details. May have to rethink that. Thanks Veronica.
Veronica, you are not being paranoid. I’d be concerned that the school wants to publish FULL names, not just first names. There are photos of your family, with first names, on both your and your Mum’s blog, so that level of identification seems to be something you are comfortable with.
There are unscrupulous people about and it for not only Amy’s protection, but your whole family that such detail needs to be screened. It took me a long time to allow pictures of myself and the GOFA as he’s well known in certain circles. I have never and will never publish our surnames. Certain people will know it after chatting to me for some time via email, but never publicly on a blog. People will work those out for themselves in due course if they wish and the GOFA will remain so, as will others in my life I care about.
Photos, in this age of digital recognition, may still be a problem,although I don’t know much about the stuff. Photos in a blog may still, I suppose, be used to track a person down, even if they use or are referred to by a pseudonym. you cannot be too careful with the web. As I’ve said before, it’s very tangled and you just never know when you will trip up.
Hell no you’re not being paranoid. When it’s your child and her safety, protection is SO not paranoia.
Veronica please edit your post removing that which Mrs C mentioned in her comment.
I didn’t give permission for my children’s name or photo’s to be used (bearing in mind they are no longer of school age, so this is some time ago). Really because they didn’t want it.
I don’t use my real name on my blog (perhaps that makes me paranoid). Sometimes I feel I hold back in writing on it because I am trying to save others feelings. Often I want to discuss more about what goes on at home etc. particularly with regard to my children and my grandson. I just couldn’t bear the thought of me writing something or publishing a photograph for the world to see and then them being mortified in the future.
I am only too aware that I am cynical, aware that it is easy to locate someone because within words and pictures there are clues anyway if someone was determined to locate an individual. If only the world was full of honest and good people. In reality I think its rare that information on line causes a problem from a blog.
When my children were younger and up to recently they were not allowed computers in their rooms. I had strict parental controls on internet usage and discussed with them both about the innapropriateness of posting photo’s on line and/or chat rooms. The fact that people can pretend to be anybody. Now they are 18 and 20 we discuss Facebook and all that entails.
Years ago the childrens photo’s were published in the paper – you know, new intake at such a such primary school. I didn’t mind that at all. At the end of the day, being aware and making one’s children aware of potential problems with the internet I think these days is down to us as parent’s to educate our children. I think the real problems start when they are teenagers and thats why mine were not left to their own devices. I’m not one of those parents who gives two hoots what other parents let their kids do, so I put up with the ‘its not fair’ stuff, so and so’s mum lets them do……..
I’m not keen though on nanny state stuff, but keeping one’s children safe whilst bearing in mind that I didn’t want them to think there was bad stuff everywhere therefore keeping a good sense of proportion about life is still an ongoing thing! For the kids these days – phone’s with their access to the internet are I think an ever increasing stress. Teenagers only have to breathe these days and let a friend know and half the world will know. Someone will tweet it, another Facebook, another text, and so it goes on. The schools can try to keep everyone safe but unless phone’s are banned from the schools entirely and that would mean searching the teenagers etc. its a battle.
When they are little it is so much easier to keep their lives within sensible boundaries.
Personally I think school websites should work on an intranet basis so that parents can log in for information etc. Some here already do that. In the early days it was a free for all. Fortunately these days I think things are getting way more sensible.
Sometimes I read a blog and wonder if the children discussed in them will be upset in the future about the content within. My guess is that they will be too busy doing something ‘technological’ that they won’t even be bothered!
Internet safety is I think an ongoing responsibility as the world becomes an open book for all to read. I agree with you Veronica and didn’t allow the school to publish stuff.
Mrs C – the website has since delisted my phone number and address, thank goodness.
Nope, you’re not being paranoid, it’s called commonsense.
You’re a parent and you’re protecting your child, end of story.
Not being paranoid at all. My parents own a daycare and are starting a website for it and they sent a form asking permission if picture of the children could be on it they never would put their name, not even their first name on the internet. and the parents had the ability to say no.
Very interesting topic, a few years back our local school had a policy to only use first names in newspaper/website etc but not the newsletter. The new kindy classes photos in local newspaper don’t name kids in full or in order either.
Though if schools put newsletters online and newsletters congratulate and name award recipients / sporting achievements etc it will make it more difficult not to do so.
I wouldn’t want to have my children on their website either for the record.
Internet safety is not about being paranoid but responsible and careful.This morning I was at the local hospital fete and a lady I’ve never spoken too directly on the internet but vaguely on a forum I posted to a while back , recognised me ( maybe my twins mostly). I also knew who she was too because her daughter has a very very unusual name…wouldn’t have known her otherwise.
She then said she had seen us before at a local playcentre and remembered the boys too.It was the day I joined that forum thread . A few of them worked out we had been at same playcentre unknowingly.
It certainly makes me think twice about what I post now.
I’ve been ‘recognised’ before from just a photo of my daughter’s memorial garden (5 yrs ago) …and I’d only been active on the internet barely a year back then. I was at scrap booking day and this woman walked past and saw it on the table.
Whatever we do or say remains out there forever.
I heard them say on radio yesterday there are going to be some very embarassed 20′s-30′s somethings in a few years time because of what they post especially on facebook and what their friends post.
The children too of bloggers might be quite embarassed …
Employers are googling names routinely now apparently.
Ps I think it is amazing they are sending school stuff already…
Great post !
We regularly hand out these sorts of forms at work for the students. Essentially, it is a legal requirement for us to do so (at least it is in NSW), but the likelihood of publishing photos on a website without another consent form is rather slim (however I guess it could happen). Most schools aren’t going to put a photo of a student online with a name attached – we don’t use any form of identifier on our school website.
I actually find it amazing they would use a full name and a photo, to be honest.
I can see where you are coming from. I myself am pretty relaxed about online security (If you can’t find out roughly where I live in an hour or less online, you are doing something wrong). I don’t put a great deal of info out there explicitly, but it is all there nonetheless.
The thing that I probably find the most interesting about this issue is that it’s not one that arose in the past. I remember having my full name and photo in the newspaper for school events MANY times as a child, and I am fairly sure my parents were never asked for permission. The newspaper had a much wider circulation and readership than a school website ever will. However, a school website does provide a somewhat accessible springboard to start a search for someone.
At the end of the day, it’s all about personal choice
which is why the forms are great!
This is not something I’ve ever thought about before. Websites weren’t around when I was in school, and I don’t think any of my grandchildren are on school websites, although some of the schools do have a website.
I don’t think you’re being at all paranoid or oversensitive. This is your baby, your family. You’re so very right wanting to protect her and them.
Why would you even NEED to list a primary school child’s full name and picture on a schol website? What? That does’t even make sense! You’re not being overcautious at all. A tiny bit paranoid, maybe, but not overly-so.
I mean, I don’t even use my child’s name on my blog. I don’t refer to her or my husband by name, and even MY name is a sort of pseudonym. Am I paranoid, or just taking reasonable precautions to protect my ability to speak freely and openly without fear of what I say biting me in the ass later on, if someone I knew in the ‘real’ world were to find it?
We forget sometimes that the internet, like elephants, never forgets. I think it’s a good idea to keep that in mind and live your online life with that at least being a consideration.
No you are not being oversensitive at all. Ruby starts kindy next year too so I have just answered the same questions. My answer was also NO.
I don’t use my girls’ or husband’s real names, but they would be easy enough to find out. There are enough people out there who know them and have/could use them that a search would turn it up. I do use my own real name because I am running a business (of sorts) and who’s going to do business with ‘ScienceMum?’ I only have a PO Box and mobile phone.
I was a bit surprised to get the form – when I was teaching it was a given that you never used surnames for anything. I don’t post a lot of personal stuff on my blog either, it isn’t that sort of blog, but I can see the potential for embarrassment. But seriously, getting in the car is a bigger risk safetywise. I suppose the difference is it is only a risk at the time, whereas the internet remembers everything.
You are not being paranoid, but if Amy shares your surname then you may want to think about how much you blog about her in the future. You are starting to talk about issues that she may not want a potential employer knowing 15 years down the track. Given your internet profile, future employers may not have to go many pages into Google or its’ descendants to find references to Amy + Foale.
Hi Sarah – nope, Amy’s surname is different to mine, which is why I felt okay about using my full name. In the future, I’ll be blogging about her less too, and when Nat and I get married, I’ll continue to write under my maiden name.
I don’t think your overreacting. You just can’t be too careful these days. Unfortunately, where there is a will, there is a way, so we can’t totally protect ourselves and our children. But, we can certainly not make our family an easy target. One thing I noticed recently was that by Googling my email address, you could find out a lot about me, therefore my children. There isn’t much I can do about it now that my email is “out there” from over the years. I hate it, but there doesn’t seem much I can do about it.
Not over-reacting. Well done you.
I’m very surprised that a primary school would list full names with photos on the internet. That seems irresponsible to me. I use my full name on my website and refer to my kids first names, but they have a different surname. When I first started blogging I discussed using the kids names with my husband and we were both okay with it. Now that I have a larger audience I’m getting less comfortable with it. Though my blog is still relatively small, it is something that gives me pause at times. I wonder, as the kids get older, if they’ll be comfortable with it. Things to think about…
I’m really surprised about the full name thing as well. What is the school thinking? I don’t reference my kids by name at all – on facebook, my account is closed as privately as possible and I’m not friends with anyone I don’t know personally. Even there I only use first names (and their surname is different to mine anyway). I never put pics of my kids online. Interesting point you’ve raised here.
There are certain things I do to protect my family (and my daughter’s identity) online as well. I would not like a third party, especially a school, to have control over posting anything online. You’re not being paranoid, as many have already said.
okay, so I use the kids real names and I put full photos on my blog.
I guess I am more careful of what I write about the boys because they are not biologically mine.
Ivy has most definitely been recognised from the blog and I know there are local people who read it too.
Our school uses names but not full names, however, if the kids are in the newspaper or in a publication of some kind their full names are used, so if they were used on the school website, then I guess I would be okay with that too.
For me, it’s not about breach of privacy or worrying about the strange people out there, it’s not about what people know about my family, because that is what I blog about. There would be no blog if I didn’t write about my family. Even if I were to write only about my feelings, they are affected by what happens with my children.
For me, if i choose to put my kids faces out there for the world to see, it has to a) be okay with the kids and b) I need to be more vigilant about leaving my children in an environment where they may be at risk.
I agree with Emily, people find out what they want to know one way or another.
This is a very interesting one. I personally think that we are incredibly naive about the internet still.
Intelligent people being very loose and fast with important information online.
Once something is ‘out there’, in ANY form, it is ‘out there’ for good.
As an example, your daughter, I have gotten her full name from information on this page alone, plus two clicks on another massively popular site.
I don’t doubt that I could do the same for any one of the commenters on this post too.
What I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is that once ANY information is out there, whether you put it there or a husband/wife/mother/father has done it, it’s there to be gathered by any person, anywhere. for any reason.
We want the benefits of the internet, and they are huge, but we need to appreciate the cost of that a LOT more.
I am in absolute agreement with you. I would never mention my childs name, our location, or ever post a picture of them in school uniform. It’s just not worth the risk. Our school is very savvy on this type of thing as well and doesn’t post any pictures of current pupils on the website. You’re not being paranoid at all. I blogged about my little ones first day of school, but didn’t post pictures.
hmmm full name seems a bit much.
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