Photographs of your children online, and the person who will see them later

These are listed in the order worth acting on, which with children and online privacy is not the order they are usually presented in.

Somebody else is consenting

A parent posting a photograph is consenting on behalf of a person who will later be able to form their own view about it. Some young people report discomfort about material posted before they were old enough to object, and that is the clearest available evidence on the question. This does not require assuming harm; it is enough that the subject was not asked.

Framing it that way is more useful than the usual argument about whether the internet is dangerous.

What leaks besides the picture

School uniform badges, house numbers, street signs and recognisable local landmarks appear in the background of ordinary photographs. Image files can carry location data, and platforms vary in whether and when they strip it. One photograph reveals very little, while a year of them reveals a routine: the same park, the same day, the same route.

For most families, the aggregate is the thing worth thinking about, and it is the thing nobody reviews.

Private is a setting, not a guarantee

A restricted audience depends on every person in that audience, any of whom can screenshot or reshare. Platform terms differ and change, and material posted years ago sits under whatever the terms are now.

On a normal day, content posted publicly can be copied, indexed and scraped, and there is no reliable mechanism for retrieving it afterwards. Assuming permanence is a more accurate mental model than assuming deletion works.

The categories worth avoiding

Bath, nappy and partially clothed photographs, however innocent, are the ones most often regretted and most often misused. Illness, hospital admissions, difficulties at school and any diagnosis are the child’s information rather than the parent’s to publish. Anything embarrassing is a decision made now that will be evaluated by a teenager later.

In practice, photographs including other people’s children need their parents’ agreement, which is exactly why schools and nurseries have policies about this.

Ask them, from surprisingly early

Children can be asked from about the age they understand what posting means, and a no should be a no even when the photograph is lovely. Teenagers in particular have strong views, and overriding them costs trust that is needed for larger conversations.

It also models exactly the behaviour you would want them to apply to images of other people. Asking is a two-second habit that changes the nature of the whole practice.

Take what is useful and ignore the rest — nobody is marking this.

The practical middle ground

Private shared albums and closed family groups deliver almost all of the benefit with a much smaller audience. Faces turned away, no names, no school and no location covers most of what people actually want to share.

When it is going badly, reviewing and pruning older posts occasionally is worth an hour and almost nobody does it. Where a family is subject to safeguarding concerns, court orders or a safety situation, the rules are stricter and are a matter for a professional rather than for personal judgement.

Everything above, in order of what to do first

1. Somebody else is consenting. A parent posting a photograph is consenting on behalf of a person who will later be able to form their own view about it.
2. What leaks besides the picture. School uniform badges, house numbers, street signs and recognisable local landmarks appear in the background of ordinary photographs.
3. Private is a setting, not a guarantee. A restricted audience depends on every person in that audience, any of whom can screenshot or reshare.
4. The categories worth avoiding. Bath, nappy and partially clothed photographs, however innocent, are the ones most often regretted and most often misused.
5. Ask them, from surprisingly early. Children can be asked from about the age they understand what posting means, and a no should be a no even when the photograph is lovely.
6. The practical middle ground. Private shared albums and closed family groups deliver almost all of the benefit with a much smaller audience.

The takeaway

Share in a closed group, strip the school and the street, and ask the child once they are old enough to answer.

You are allowed to do the easier version tonight.