Worried about a friend's behaviour: privacy issues with photos

[EmilyAlexandra]

I have a friend who seems, to me, to have a very relaxed approach to respecting other people’s privacy. She keeps sending me photos on WhatsApp of her friends and family members and, in particular, their children. All of these are people I have never met. Most of them live thousands of miles away from me. They quite possibly/probably have no idea that I even exist.

Just to give you a few examples: when her cousin’s wife had a baby, she forwarded to me several photos of the baby that she had received via WhatsApp. More astonishingly, to me, she also forwarded me a photo of her cousin’s wife in a hospital bed just after giving birth. She is clearly wearing no clothes at all, and her breasts are only covered because she is holding the baby in front of them. To be clear, these are people I have never met and probably will never meet. I can’t even remember their names.

She has also sent me photos of other people’s children and babies, e.g. children of her other friends and relatives. One time, she went out with a friend (someone I have never met) and her friend’s nieces. She took photos of her friend’s nieces and sent them to me. I was thinking about how far removed this is from parental control. The girls’ dad let his kids go out for the day with his sister. The dad’s sister invited my friend along. My friend then took photos of the girls and sent them to me. I think I would be quite annoyed if I let my sibling take my children out, my sibling brought along their friend, and the friend took photos of my children to send to somebody I’ve never even heard of.

Am I being unreasonable? I honestly think that in this day when we are all supposedly so concerned about child protection, it is not really acceptable to be sending photos of other people’s children to somebody the parents have never even heard of, let alone given express permission to receive photos of their children. As for the photo of the cousin’s wife naked in a hospital bed with her breasts only obscured because she was holding a baby in front of her chest, I thought that was a really intimate family moment which, to be honest, I am surprised the woman even wanted to be seen by her husband’s cousin (no way is anyone other than my husband seeing photos of me like that!), let alone her husband’s cousin’s friend.

I could understand if my friend was very young or from a very liberal culture, but she is an American woman in her 40s, so I would expect her to be quite conservative and quite respectful of boundaries.

Something that worries me is that I am expecting my first baby soon, and I would like to be able to send my friend photos (though not ones of myself naked in a hospital bed!), but I feel like I can’t risk sending her photos of myself and my family knowing that she will probably be forwarding them to people I’ve never even heard of, let alone people I would choose to share pictures of my baby with. I feel I can hardly say, “Here are some photos of the baby. They are for you only. Do not forward these to anybody.”

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

I could understand if my friend was very young or from a very liberal culture, but she is an American woman in her 40s, so I would expect her to be quite conservative and quite respectful of boundaries.

It’s quite possible that this woman simply isn’t technological savvy and doesn’t realize that her behavior might be risky. I don’t see any harm in gently explaining it to her.

Something that worries me is that I am expecting my first baby soon, and I would like to be able to send my friend photos (though not ones of myself naked in a hospital bed!), but I feel like I can’t risk sending her photos of myself and my family knowing that she will probably be forwarding them to people I’ve never even heard of, let alone people I would choose to share pictures of my baby with. I feel I can hardly say, “Here are some photos of the baby. They are for you only. Do not forward these to anybody.”

First, congratulations! Second, sure you can. Make it into a joke if you want to defuse any tension. “Oh, I know I’m so paranoid, but please don’t send these to anyone…”

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

It’s quite possible that this woman simply isn’t technological savvy and doesn’t realize that her behavior might be risky. I don’t see any harm in gently explaining it to her.

Unfortunately, I really don’t think that she doesn’t understand the technology. She’s a successful businesswoman who divides her time between London and New York and therefore spends much of her life online on one of her many devices speaking with colleagues in different time zones all over the world. I honestly think that she doesn’t realise that her behaviour is often inappropriate. E.g., over the summer I said I’d seen some children walking a new puppy in the park. Her immediate reaction was to ask me to send her the photos. She seemed genuinely confused when I said I had, of course, not taken any photos of somebody else’s children. Then I remembered that on several occasions she had sent me photos she had taken of people walking their dogs just because she liked the dogs.

First, congratulations!

Thank you!

Second, sure you can. Make it into a joke if you want to defuse any tension. “Oh, I know I’m so paranoid, but please don’t send these to anyone…”

Yes, I guess. I worry she will think it is odd, as she seems to think that once a photo has been created, it is fair game for it to be sent to anyone anywhere in the world. But yes, I can say something like, “I know my husband and I are a bit odd in this regard, but would you mind keeping these photos to yourself? We know the baby is adorable, but we don’t want her going viral on social media. At least not until we find her an agent!” I guess it annoys me that I have to say it, and I feel bad for not pointing out that her cousin’s wife would probably be horrified to know that her immediate post-childbirth photo has ended up on my phone.

 

[JMMJ]

Some people have no concept of boundaries. Add to that a lack of common sense, and this is the kind of thing you wind up with.

Personally, I don’t know that I could be friends with someone who was missing both of those things. You can educate her on this particular issue, but there are other situations that will arise where her deficiency will cause equally distressing occurrences.

You may, gently, explain to her why what she is doing is a bad idea. I wouldn’t be light-hearted about it or do it in a joking way. Clearly, she is old enough to know better, if she is in her 40’s.

 

[bluerose]

Online predators are a real thing. I personally would NOT send her a picture unless she can assure you that she will NOT share it with ANYONE without your express permission. I have a friend whose daughter sometimes posts pictures of her and her husband on Facebook, but if the kids are in the picture, she will blur out their faces or cover them with a filter so the children are not recognizable. And she puts in strict restrictions on who can see the pictures (she filters the privacy down to where only her mother can see the pics but they won’t be visible to friends of her mother… unless of course, mom shows the pics on her phone to other people.)

 

[TheLittleLady]

Millions of parents raised millions of children while sending maybe 1 photograph per year to relatives who were far away.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

Millions of parents raised millions of children while sending maybe 1 photograph per year to relatives who were far away.

I agree! I shouldn’t think my parents sent anyone photos of me as a child. But now that virtually everyone (at least people of an age to be having babies) has a smart phone and WhatsApp, I think it’s expected. I just know she will be pestering me for photos of everything to do with the baby.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I know you’re in UK. Your friend is from USA. We don’t have the same privacy restrictions here, or the same concern about forwarding pictures of someone’s baby to our friends.

The semi-naked nursing mom/ new mom pic is a little more questionable, but there are nursing moms who don’t find anything objectionable in pictures of them nursing their babies and in fact are militant about sharing them, in part to be “in your face” towards people who object to moms nursing in public.

Anyway, there’s obviously a difference in what you think is okay in this regard and what your friend thinks is okay. I don’t think we need to judge one or the other as “unreasonable”, it’s likely just a cultural difference and that’s that. So just tell her you would rather not receive any more photos of other people’s children. If necessary you can say that such photos are legally questionable in your country due to privacy laws, and you don’t want you or her to get in any trouble with the authorities.

And then don’t share any photos of yourself or your baby that you don’t want her to forward or to show to others on her phone. You could look into some photo sharing platform/ app that would not allow the recipient to forward the photos to anyone not on your viewing list.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Millions of parents raised millions of children while sending maybe 1 photograph per year to relatives who were far away.

I agree with this too. I will be honest here - unless I were the baby’s parent, grandma, maybe auntie, I do not need to see more than a couple pictures a year of someone’s baby or child. I don’t mind looking at a picture or two of new baby, or a birthday party or Halloween costume picture, but I have no interest in seeing dozens of baby pictures or photos of the birth unless like I said it’s immediate family.

Most people realize this and put up a baby or child picture once in a while and not all the time. I mostly see them on Facebook, and I know a lot of people also don’t want a ton of pictures of their child on Facebook, so like I said, it’s usually a 1 to 3 times a year thing at most.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

Some people have no concept of boundaries. Add to that a lack of common sense, and this is the kind of thing you wind up with.

This is exactly what I thought. It sounds like you, JMMJ, know someone who has little concept of boundaries.

If I were the OP I would end the relationship because even if you tell her explicitly not to do X, they will find some other way to cross that particular boundary or some other boundary at some other time. Someone of that age who doesn’t know boundaries is never going to learn them. And in my experience, may have some sort of personality disorder for lack of a better term.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

there are other situations that will arise where her deficiency will cause equally distressing occurrences.

Like the time we were walking past some flats in a very expensive area of London and she went and almost literally pressed her nose up against somebody’s window so she could read the titles of the books on their bookshelves. Apparently she was just curious to know what sort of books they read. Thankfully, it seemed that nobody was home, but it was really weird.

She is a really lovely person, but I think she finds it difficult to imagine how other people might feel or to understand that other people may see things differently to her.

We don’t have the same privacy restrictions here, or the same concern about forwarding pictures of someone’s baby to our friends.

I think it is more a cultural difference in that case rather than a legal difference. As far as photography is concerned, we really have very few protections in the UK. You can make, possess, and distribute photos of anybody unless you’re breaking laws concerned with terrorism, indecency, voyeurism, or harassment. So, I say that parents would call the police if I went around photographing their children, and they probably would, but the police would only get involved if the photos were indecent or voyeuristic or if people were being caused harassment, alarm, or distress on multiple occasions.

If you have ever seen a British tabloid newspaper during the summer months, you will see that every year they publish hundreds of photos of people (mostly attractive young women) in swimwear or underwear on the beach, in parks, etc. If you are in a public place, there is nothing to stop a photographer taking a photo of you and publishing it. Newspapers even publish photos of people, almost always celebrities, naked, and this is legal. Until 2019, it was legal to take a photo up a woman’s skirt without her consent. It was made illegal following a campaign by a woman called Gina Martin. She discovered that a man had taken photos under her skirt in Hyde Park. She took the phone he had taken the photos on to the police, but they were unable to take any action because what he had done was not illegal.

I take the point about women photographing themselves breastfeeding, and I guess it’s fine to share those if they are published on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with no privacy settings, as some people do. I was more reacting to the fact it was a photo the woman’s husband had taken in the hospital. To the best of my knowledge, they did not wish for the photo to be shared with a wider audience. I know that they are very conservative evangelicals, so I doubt that they are part of the so-called “lactivist” culture or the sort of people who post risqué photos of social media.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

I have no interest in seeing dozens of baby pictures

This too. I am not even sure why my friend thinks I want to receive a constant stream of photos of the babies and children of her relatives and friends whom I have never met and am unlikely to meet. I get messages along the lines of “Here is a photo of the daughter of a woman I knew at university” or “Here is a photo of the daughters of the brother of a woman I went to high school with”. I am, to be quite honest, not very interested in the children of my actual friends, so I am not sure why I would be interested in the children of my friend’s friends or even my friend’s friends’ relatives etc.