Internet privacy for our children

wdc*bride · May 2012

I'm curious what others are doing when it comes to setting boundaries about the dissemination of digital photos and information on your children. What are you comfortable doing -- i.e., email photos, facebook photos with "friend access" only, youtube channels that are public without identifying info, etc.? How are you discussing your boundaries with family members who have less stringent boundaries?

My personal preference is to have really locked-down privacy for myself and my future child, but my mother is a very share-y person. She would have a public website and youtube channel broadcasting 24/7 pics of my child without much protection of personal information if left to her own devices. I want to try to reach a reasonable resolution that accommodates her "grandmother pride," so I'd like to get a sense of what reasonable resolutions others have come up with.

SallySunrise · May 2012

I am fine with pictures of Ben on facebook set to "friends" only. I really don't expect any of my fb friends to download and keep/use the pictures, but in case they did, I am careful never to put any naked or weirdly positioned pics up.

This is the only other website I share things on, and I am very careful never to use my last name. (AND, surprise ladies, my first name isn't even really Sally! Muahahaha!)

apollonia10 · May 2012

I was a teacher until last year so I got pretty good at hiding my identity online. My FB is locked down to friends only and not searchable, and I will probably make sure that anyone who is posting pics of our baby is the same, including my mom, who is also very share-y. She put my u/s picture on FB and I flipped out. Call me paranoid, but I really don't like the idea of my kid's pictures online for the world to see.

bookworm982 · May 2012

We aren't publishing our child's name, pictures, birthdate, etc. anywhere on the web. I won't even put that information here on the bump.

On dh's side, his brother and sil made the same decision, so they paved the ground for us. My side is incredibly understanding and doesn't have a big online presence anyway, so I don't see it being a problem.

Because there won't be facebook/blog/etc updates, we will probably send periodic emails (maybe monthly?) with pictures to family and close friends. Dh's brother and one of my friends do this, and I love it. I'd rather get a couple stories with pictures than check various online sources anyway.

I might be extreme, but with today's identity theft issues and dh's line of work, it is impossible to be to careful.

wdc*bride · May 2012

OP here again. I'm also particularly curious what discussion techniques and explanations have been the most successful in discussing privacy with share-y people. I've found out the hard way that my mother (the share-y one) doesn't understand my privacy concerns at all and takes it very personally, like I'm doing this to hurt her, when I talk about restrictions. I want to try to be reasonable and diplomatic.

Of course, I know that whatever solution I decide upon for my child's safety, I will enforce even if it hurts her feelings, but I'd like to try to get her to understand. Are there things that have actually resonated better than others?

mrs.sewell · May 2012

I have my LO's ultrasound pic on here, but posted nowhere else. I also have a couple pics of myself on here, but again, nowhere else. I closed my FB a while ago because it was all drama and really just irritating more than anything. I did plan on re-opening it when the baby came to have somewhere my out-of-state family could see him, but it will be super private and totally on lock-down. After all, I have my husband's insane ex-wife to consider. She thoroughly enjoys cyber stalking me.

doggie mama · May 2012

I'm going to insist that no one post any pictures on FB. We won't be posting either. Our accounts are pretty secure but a lot of other people (my ILS included) are not FB savvy enough to be fully protected. They might think they are, when in fact they are not. Plus FB changes privacy settings all the time. The bottom line is if people want to get in they will.

For this reason I do not plan to share photos electronically. If people want a copy of a photo, I will print one out for them, old school. If I see that they are scanning and posting the pictures they are entrusted with then they lose that privilege. I wish I could trust people enough to provide electronic pics and just tell them, don't post or share electronically, but I can't. Can you tell there are certain people I have in mind? Obviously there is really nothing I can do about the pictures others take of her other than politely request that they not post them.

My daughter is not a Kardashian. She does not need to be "out there" and there is no reason to generate publicity for her. There are plenty of opportunities for relatives to show their pride in her without her image out there on the web. Maybe I'm being paranoid. But I work in a museum where even the most tightly controlled images get ripped off and manipulated.

sisterjanet · May 2012

I never did a facebook "announcement." DH mentioned he doesn't want any pictures of the baby on facebook either. I was thinking maybe one, but I'd rather do birth announcement cards to the people I care about. I have such a random mix of people from high school or college or old jobs that I never really talk to that I don't post anything anyway.

kiwi625 · May 2012

This is slightly off topic, but in the same vein as privacy, and the reason I do not post identifying pictures of my family on here:

Recently I realized that one of our July moms-to-be and I share a friend IRL, thanks to both of us commenting on a picture posted by a shared FB friend. When I clicked on the notification that someone else had commented on the picture, I was shocked when the profile picture looked ridiculously similar to a siggy pic I have seen on our board. The next time I saw that siggy I went back to my friend's FB picture and sure enough it was the same person. (I asked my friend if her friend was also pregnant and explained the situation. I didn't reveal anything the July Mom had said (and never would) and requested my friend not bring this up.) It just creeps me out to no end that I stumbled upon this. Even if you post a pic of yourself, but don't say your name, I still think most people expect some level of anonymity on here. It's such a small world, and more and more, people exploit electronic information.

Just something to think about.