Posting of Personally Identifiable Photos and Videos of Children onto Public Websites

Recently, a parent of one of my son's Little League teammates took it upon himself to post a considerable number of game photos and videos onto public sites like Flickr, YouTube, and Vimeo. I am not necessarily opposed to this - in fact I think it can be very useful SO LONG AS the sites are private (password protected), secure (hacker proof), and no parents object.

Unfortunately, this parent reluctantly added password protection only after I raised concerns about child privacy and safety. I soon found out he knowingly and intentionally left open a number of backdoors open allow ANYONE to access the content without passwords. Sadly, I actually overheard this parent tell another parent "I was the only person who had ever objected in the 5 years he's been posting pictures and videos of his son's games." He actually went so far as to say he was considering sending around an email to all parents EXCEPT me to let them know how to access the content without a password.

In my view this parent has demonstrated he is not only indifferent to the possibility of child endangerment (the pictures and videos contain identifiably information such as children's names, team names, and locations), he is willfully ignoring it.

The only law I've been able to find that even comes close to protecting the privacy and safety of children on the Internet appears to be COPPA. Unfortunately, COPPA appears to be intended to protect information that kids post about themselves, rather than what third parties post about them (such as pictures and videos). Additionally, COPPA seems to target commercial websites rather than non-commercial "sub-sites" (like those created by individuals on Flickr, YouTube, and Vimeo.)

What laws are available in this situation to help protect the privacy and safety of children? Would "child endangerment" laws apply?

Thanks,

InternetParent

Personally, I don't know that you have any claim against the parent who is posting the videos. Absent some sort of commercial gain, I believe he can post these for the world to see if he wishes to do so.

What exactly do you object to with these videos?

- Carl

My objection is that many of the videos and photos contain personally identifiable information - last names on jerseys; organization name and city on signs; first names, organization name, city, and date in "tags" – information that could assist a child predator in locating, contacting, and possibly abducting a child. I am strongly opposed to making it easy for child predators to shop for children via the internet. In my view, there is no reason personally identifiable pictures of children need to be posted for the entire world to see. It should be sufficient for parents wanting to share videos and photos, to place them on secure sites with password protection. Parents should have the right to limit viewing of personally identifiable videos and photos to "invited" family and friends.

It seems strange that we have laws like COPPA that protect kids from themselves by limiting what companies can do with information kids post about themselves, yet it seems we have no laws to protect kids from what others post about them.

Most schools and youth organizations have policies that prohibit disclosure of a child's personally identifiable information without parental consent. Perhaps those that do not assume there are sufficient privacy and safety laws in place to protect kids. I am hoping that is the case and that someone here will let me know what those laws are.

Thanks,

InternetParent

You concerns may be understandable, but I am aware of no law that could compel the other parent from taking them down.

As for child predators, there are many ways that they obtain this information and it has less to do with seeing a child in a video that speaking to a child via e-mail or chat and reading the info from videos or pictures that the target child sends them. A photo of the child in his jersey, a video of a big play, that sort of thing. If you were to see a video on line with my son's last name playing football, you might be able to determine his last name, and even the school he works for, but how does that help get the predator introduced to the child?

In any event, absent some law in your state preventing him from posting this video, he is under no legal obligation to remove it. You can always make the request to Flickr, YouTube, or wherever and see if THEY will remove them, but that's their decision and not a legal one.

- Carl

I agree with Carl. The problem you have is that these photos can be shared on the street and given away in the same way they are published online - true? So does it really make any difference that they are digital and not celluloid? Perhaps the only avenue you may have is to look at league rules and restrictions, which may have some language about game photos. That's where I'd look first if I was trying to limit the dissemination of these photos.