It comes as second nature to upload our family snaps on Social media. Been on a family holiday? Upload the pics to Facebook. Enjoying a day out? It goes straight on Instagram. A couple of clicks and you have shared photos of your children without even thinking about it.
Sharing family life
We live in a digital age where we choose to share most of our family life online. We mark milestones and events by posting photos that previously would have been kept in a photo album at home. First tooth? First steps? The very first day of school all shared on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat with the rest of the world.
But what happens when in the oversharing age of parenting (sharenting) that your children withdraw their consent? When they no longer give their permission to be featured on their parent’s profiles?
Consent
The result of a recent Italian family court case has seen the court ruled against a Mother who is now no longer able to share photos, posts or even mention her sixteen-year-old son on social media. If she ignores the ban, then she will be landed with a high ten thousand euro fine. She must also remove any old posts/photos of her son and if she refuses? She will have a monetary penalty imposed.
It seems that the youngster’s unhappiness with his mother’s oversharing came to a head during his parent’s divorce.
In Italian law, the reference and subject of the photo is the one that owns the copyright, hence, in this case, the teenage boy. The ruling of the case is one of the first of its kind seeing the defendant landed with such a large fine if she does not adhere to its ruling.
A lawyer Giuseppe Croari told the website Euronews.com the boy’s mother violated Facebook’s terms of service by posting photos of her son who has the copyright of that data.
However, are we all in fact guilty of this?
The Facebook terms that users agree to are;
‘Not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law’.
According to experts, the European news site goes on to say that it is more common for parental rights over posting photos to be questioned during divorce proceedings in Italy.
The victim told the family court that he did not want his photo on his parent’s social media profiles during divorce trial.
In November a judge from Italy said that either parent cannot post photos of their children if they are underage and the other parent does not agree. It isn’t just Italy that are beginning to take note of the need for evolving laws regarding children and social media. The law in France is extremely harsh and violating a child’s privacy could lead to a 45,000-euro fine and a year’s imprisonment.
This Italian court case could be the first of many, and it leads to many new questions that previous generations have not necessarily have had to face. It may raise important questions such as children’s privacy violations and do parents really have the right to ‘sharent’?
