How to ask photographers to leave your children out

When we're in a public place and someone is taking photographs around our children, we go over and ask them to leave the kids out.

That's a normal conversation for us now. We don't want their photos ending up somewhere we didn't choose, and I'd rather say that while the camera is still there than try to find the upload afterwards.

You may feel awkward doing it. A short, ordinary request helps. The person holding the camera doesn't need your entire philosophy of online privacy before they can adjust the frame.

Say what you want them to do

Something as simple as this is enough to start:

Hey, please don't take pictures of our kids. We keep their faces off public posts, and we don't want photos of them ending up online. Thanks for understanding.

If someone is photographing their own family and your child is in the background, make that easy to understand:

Could you keep our child out of the frame, please? We're keeping their photos private. We can move a little so you can get your picture.

Those are different situations. A person taking a close-up of your child needs to hear that you want them to stop. Someone trying to get a photo of their own child might only need to know which bit of the background to avoid.

You don't have to offer a compromise you don't want. If you don't want any photographs in which your child can be recognised, say so. If a group picture with your child cropped out would be fine, explain that.

Taking the photo and posting it are separate decisions

“It's only for the group” can mean a small message thread, the club's social account or a gallery anyone can open with a link. Before agreeing, find out which one they mean.

If the photograph already exists, ask for the outcome you want:

Please don't post that picture with our child visible. Could you delete it or use another shot? If you crop our child out before sharing, that would be fine with us.

Leave out the cropping option if it isn't fine with you. The point is to make your actual boundary clear, rather than soften it until it says something else.

For an official photographer, also ask who selects and publishes the images. The person behind the camera might remember your conversation perfectly while someone else uploads the whole folder that evening. Your request needs to reach both people.

Australia's eSafety Commissioner recommends being clear about permission, where children's images will be shared, how they will be stored and for how long. Those are useful questions to ask an organiser, wherever you live. eSafety's photo-sharing guidance explains the considerations.

For events, ask before you arrive

An email ahead of a sports day or workshop gives the organiser time to arrange something workable. Send it to the person organising the event and ask them to confirm how they'll handle the request.

You could write:

Hi, we'll be at [event]. Please keep our child out of photographs and videos, including anything posted online afterwards. Could you confirm how the photographer and the person publishing the gallery will receive that request? We'd like our child to take part in the activities as usual. Please let us know who we should speak to when we arrive, and where any event pictures will be published. Thank you for helping us arrange this.

Change the first request if your rule is only about publication. Then agree on the practical details:

That last part matters to me. A child shouldn't have to explain the family's privacy rules to every adult in the room. The adults can arrange the photographs while the child gets on with the activity.

Be clear about the limits of the request

We ask because this is our family's boundary. That doesn't mean parents have a universal legal right to stop every photograph taken in a public place.

For example, London's Metropolitan Police says the public and media generally don't need a permit to photograph or film in public places. Its photography guidance describes that context; it doesn't answer every question about harassment, commercial use, safeguarding or publication in another country.

If you need to know what you can legally require, check the rules where it happened. For the conversation in front of you, I'd use a practical request I can explain rather than a legal claim I haven't checked.

If the answer is no

Repeat the request clearly. At an event, ask the organiser, venue manager or responsible staff member to help. If you can move away, do that. Trying to settle it by grabbing a phone or camera will give you another problem without resolving where the pictures go.

If a photograph appears online, keep the page address and enough context to identify the post. Ask the uploader to remove it, or to use a version without your child if that's acceptable to you. Our removal guide covers what to do next.

You can't guarantee that every copy will disappear. You can make a specific request about the one you've found and follow through on it.

Remember this when you're the one taking photos

When we're filming movement for Baby Acrobatics and Instagram, we also have to think about other families who happen to be in the background.

Ask before posting somebody else's child, and let their answer determine which picture you use. If they've agreed to an edit, cover or blur the identifying area and check the finished file. Don't assume your usual editing choice meets their boundary.

The same conversation comes up with people you know well, so there are also scripts for asking relatives not to post. You can keep all of this fairly ordinary. A clear request while everyone is still there is easier to act on than a search for a photograph nobody remembers taking.