Publishing children’s names in the press
Posted: June 10th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: General, Social Comment | Tags: newpaper press photograph children privacy | 1 Comment »
My local paper ran a picture of my daughter last night complete with her full name and the name of her school. I think this is absolutely irresponsible.
I’m normally pretty liberal when it comes to things like this as I feel there is a lot of scaremongering that goes on. Even so, I think it’s our responsibility to accept that there are people out there that might use this sort of info for nefarious reasons.
I know the school has a policy that doesn’t permit showing full names with photos and that’s how it should be.
It seems the paper thinks otherswise as they have published the full name (and in places schools and ages) of every child shown in a photograph within their pages.
Speaking to the head teacher this morning she shared my concerns. Every guideline I have ever read concerning publishing photographs of children says that this shouldn’t happen.
I’ll be calling the newspaper later today and probably getting arsey with them.
I’m inclined to agree with you to be honest. I know people might say “what’s the harm?”
Say someone wanted to get revenge/blackmail/ransom you as a parent what better way that getting to your child?
Or even worse, what if some paedophile sees the picture and “takes a fancy” to them? You can teach a child “don’t talk to strangers” but approaching one and saying “Hi! Your Florence Smith, I recognise you from the picture your Daddy showed me. He’s stuck at work and asked me if I could pick you up” the child might be inclined to believe them because they knew their name.