Learn about Kids: Why do schools really stop parents taking photographs of their children?

Taking pictures of children has become a public charge issue, says Josie Appleton

Sue Rice, had a shock when she opened her daughter's nursery directory to see the smiling photograph of four years. His eyes had vanished. Sue is part of a group of parents involved in a de facto ban on photography at the primary school in a quiet area of ??Hertfordshire. It all began with an ad in the school newsletter saying that photography was not allowed in the Christmas play, but parents can buy a DVD for $ 12.

shooting requests should be made in writing to the Director, but in almost all cases were rejected "because of the maintenance of all children." Despite repeated extraction of the issue with the school and the Board of Directors, these parents have denied the pictures of their children on sports days and Christmas games -. Even in the PTA art fair

general prohibition is relatively rare, but the issue of children became full picture in schools in the United Kingdom. Ten years ago, nobody thought twice about photographing children in the field of football. Now, every click of the camera with a cloud hanging malice possible. Who is this girl photography and why? What will they do with the photo? The epitome of innocence - Parents registered their children Nativity - became subject to strict regulation

throughout Hertfordshire primary school policy photography 2008 read like a piece of particularly thorny contract law. "Parents could not understand," says Monica, another mother at school, the policy has been reduced to four pages although the image is still prohibited.

Many schools and sports groups, both parents of the child and consent forms, and if the parents want to take pictures themselves must also complete a "camera folder photo "form, after which will be issued with a wristband or sticker. Three ways to take a picture.

Rules for storage

photo school football are increasingly stringent, for example, the rules governing the storage of the police of DNA. Robin Hood Primary and nursery in Nottinghamshire said that his photographs are stored in a "safe place" for no more than four years, after which he "privately destroyed."

A school teacher from Hertfordshire, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he was only allowed to photograph the students at his school sporting events, so that "if there are three children medal platform to take his son away from the platform and photo separately. "

The Child Protection in Sport Unit recommends "avoid face and body shots" and that children in swimsuits must see "of the waist or shoulders to up. "These rules create a kind of photography, children stilts where children are represented by themselves or designated" photos "at the end of the work or the party, rather than in the thick of events.

schools often cite the Data Protection Act 1998 or children of 2004 as the reason for the prohibition of photography. "But there is nothing in the Children's Act which says:" Thou shalt not photograph the children, '"says Eleanor Coner, Chief Information Officer at the Council of Scottish parents. The Office of the Information Commissioner has led to the extinction of the interim financial statements that refute the myth that the Law on Data Protection prohibits photography. "We call it the" duckout data protection, "said David Smith, director of the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner to information." Something that people do not want to do, but can not easily explained, for example, it is because of the Law on Data Protection. " In fact, the image bans can not be attributed to a single event or the law. Instead, it seems that there has been a change from the 2000s when similar regulations disseminated in schools and sports organizations.

As an example of how attitudes have changed, a manufacturer of playground equipment of children asked a photographer, John Robertson, to shoot your camera in a variety of sites English, shouted parents and children caught in the parks of Nottingham, Cambridge and the Isle of Wight.

Disseminate photos prohibitions is not really an answer to pedophiles lurking school sports days. Instead, it reflects the daily pollution relationships between adults and children - and guess again, because children's author Philip Pullman has said that "the default position of a human being to another is a predator rather that goodness. "Any adult looking through the viewfinder in which a child is considered potentially sinister and in need of regulation.

course, none of these restrictions cease support pedophile images of children, and apart from anything else, it would be easy enough to pay £ 12 for a DVD or even school birth register your camera .