Every now and then I come across the age old debate of the internet and children's photos. This morning I read a blog post by MamaMia (@miafreedman). I have great respect for this lady and enjoy her blog so the following rant has nothing to do with her or her views.
It's usually starts out as innocent concern about children's likenesses and them being used on the web. As anyone with children knows you are repeatedly being asked to sign a waiver allowing your child to be photographed in the event that a photograph is taken and your child just happens to be in it.
Recently (well, it feels like it was just yesterday) I attended my daughters day-care Christmas Party and before the festivities began they gathered everyone together to let us all know that there would be photographs taken. If you objected then you would need to leave. No one did. This leads me to believe that generally parents aren't too worried about it. That said, when I read these kinds of musings it triggers my imagination and all the imagery of Law & Order SVU starts to swirl (movie montage like) around my head.
Not to say that it's all stuff of sensationalist television shows. Walking back from dinner out with the Park Mums last night one of them pointed out that the toilet block at the other park was a notorious peado hang out. Apparently, it's a well known inner city meeting place for hook ups, children have been propositioned and she has been questioned by police on a least 3 occasions in the last few years. They have locked it for the meantime until they decide what to do. So far clearing a few trees from around it hasn't worked. Surprise surprise...
So it is a very real concern. My natural tendency is to look up stats on how many paedos there are, what methods are used to find their fodder with the hope of applying some kind of probability so that I don't feel like the whole interweb has gone to hell and a hand basket - but realistically that kind of information isn't out there. To be honest I don't really want to spend any more time on these lowlifes.
For now, what I'm going to do is keep updating my daughters site so that our distant family and friends can share in the enjoyment of watching her grow. I am going to be mindful of the kind of images that can be misused and take other kind of actions to protect us. I figure that if the site can't be found through search engines then that will go a long way to ensuring no one but the people who know the URL will be able to find it.
And yes, I am willing to take the risk. The immense enjoyment that my family and I get out of having a wonderful record of our beautiful daughters life that we can share with our family and friends worldwide is worth it. I can pull it up at work when I am missing her and I can reminisce about the early years - even when I'm sitting in traffic in a cab on my mobile phone.
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