I say a big 'no'. How do you decide who has a "legitimate" reason to photograph children and who is just a creep? If your pet project is so important to you, you can take the time to get permission from parents. I'm srue 99% of people who would want to do this mean no harm but she's my daughter and that's my decision.

For me it depends. If there's a stranger at the park taking a picture of my daughter I'm going to have something to say about it. We were in a fast food place one time and a woman took out her cell phone to take a picture of my daughter when she was about 10 months old and I flipped out. I find it to be extremely weird and inappropriate.

But..with something like this, with a child be photographed by photographers in school, I don't see the issue. I mean is it getting to the point where we'll be unable to take pictures and use them in yearbooks without parent's consent? I think people take things to extreme too often.

it seems harmless (taking pictures of children while in the school setting), but I think the issue at hand can get complicated very quickly because of how easy it is to pass images along. before you know it, a picture of your son/daughter ends up linked to a thrice removed friend-of-a-friend on facebook with their name, class and school location and that is where it becomes unnerving.

it is exactly "those" pictures (yearbook and school) that seem most harmless that seemed to get passed along the most.

I think there are probably far more worrying pictures out there in the internet than fully clothed children. However I would be concerned because the photographer working with the children would have the ability to build trust and rapport which could give them easy access at a later date.

I try very hard not to worry about it, my child is often the centre of my photography and he features all over the internet. Some creep looking at his picture on the internet isn't actually hurting my child. It's important to keep perspective, parents are abusers to and it's pretty rare (in the UK at least) for it to be a complete stranger to the child which is why I think limiting access for projects like this is probably the sensible option.

Any stranger who takes someone else's photo -- child or adult -- without asking permission first is guilty of rude and inappropriate behaviour and deserves whatever angry reaction they receive.

Having said that, I've had strangers ask me quite nicely if they can take a photo of my adorable children doing something adorable, and I'm generally cool with that. :)

I don't allow anyone to take pictures of my son without permission. The school included. We have to sign waivers for everything. I don't sign them often.

When they wanted him to be the face of the local school in commericals I had to think long and hard about it. I eventually let him- and the commericals were fun for a while- but I'm very glad they are off the air now....

so the same teachers and school administrators that you trust with your children for 7 unsupervised hours every weekday, you don't trust to determine the appropriateness of a photography project that takes place on school grounds? that makes no sense to me.

several years ago my office completed a large elementary school, and we asked the school if we could take some "after" photos of students using the classrooms. eventually they told us that we could, but that not a single parent had consented to allow their child in the photos. in the end we had to ask friends and colleagues to allow us to use their children as stand-ins. the photo shoot came out fine - several parents even turned up to tell us how much their children loved the new school. I had to bite my tongue at that!

As an actual photographer I ALWAYS ask for the parents permission to photograph their child. As a Dad of a 2 year old, I wouldn't want someone on the "street" taking a photo of my son.
With that said...at school/daycare, where I trust the teachers with my child, i also feel that they would make the appropriate decision on how to use the photos they take. If it is used in advertising for the school...they sure better get my permission, but if it's just for decorating their walls or for a project they are doing for the room/class...why would I say no to that?
Maybe I'm just naive but i don't think EVERY PERSON out there is a perv and out to do something unseemly to my child!

I work for a library system. This is an issue we struggle with in our branches as we want to get fun, cute pictures but it was very difficult to get consent, for group shots especially. We recently revised our photo release policy (after consulting our attorney) so that we make an announcement at the beginning of a program that photos will be taken. For individual shots (meaning a person's face is easily identifiable) we do get a release form.

I have triplets along with 2 other boys. I get a lot of attention when ever we go out. I have caught people taking photos of my kids, some have asked, other have not. It is something I wish people would stop doing. We are not a freak show for you to blog about.

I'll be honest. I completely respect people's right to choose what's best for their family and judge their own privacy needs, and as an amateur photographer I try and respect the wishes of parents. But for *me* personally, thinking about my own child, I find these kinds of concerns somewhat baffling. I truly don't see how some theoretical predator is going to look up a photo on the internet and... track down some specific child? I'm bothered by the perception that Strangers Are Getting More Dangerous!1! when that is, in fact, patently untrue - stranger danger is actually decreasing. And the people who pose the greatest risk to children have always been family and friends of the family.

Parents should also be aware that photography in public places OR in places easily viewed from a public place (with no expectation of privacy) is completely legal in most jurisdictions of which I am aware. Consequently, consent for photography for non-commercial applications is not needed for minors OR adults. Of course, what's legal and what's polite/reasonable are two different things, but still, it's important to be aware of the law.

If you and/or your child/ren are in public... tough cookies, in the USA because of public domain copyright law anything on public property can be photographed without consent. You're visible, and, if someone wants to record and use that... tough cookies. If you don't want to be seen (and possibly recorded) in public, don't go out in public.

That being said, school, or private establishments are places where approval must be given. Either through signage, announcements, or written and signed waivers.
On the other hand, it's polite to ask before you take pictures and be mindful of what you do with them.

I think perspective is a big thing here as well. COULD someone see a picture, then stalk your child and do horrible things? Yes. IS someone going to be so pushed over the edge, by your child's photograph, as to do those things? It's statistically improbable. Remember, your child is more likely to be struck by lightning then abducted by a stranger.

When was the last time you spent time warning your child about lightning? When you go outside do you check for signs of lightning the same way you scan for people snapping pictures? If you need something about which to worry, you SHOULD be!

Some families have excellent reasons to keep their children's photographs unpublished. Children adopted out of the foster care system might face serious risks from the people who previously abused them. While some people change dramatically from birth to childhood to adolescence to adulthood some are easily identifiable even after years of absence.

Sometimes non-custodial parents stalk their kids (and former partners).

A parent's mandate for privacy might be more than a vague paranoia about stranger danger. They may be avoiding a exposure to a known threat.

I personally feel I have an obligation to my children not to reveal too much about them on the Internet. I don't want their future classmates to simply google potty-training stories, bathtub photos, or my diary of parental frustrations. I think we owe our children the right, in their own time, to decide what of their information is offered for public consumption.

I work for a newspaper and this issue came up today. One of our photographers was at a school to document the first day, all the celebrations and nerves.

The school system typically has a procedure of getting parental release forms -- however that had not been done because it was the first day of school. Needless to say, the school knew the photographer was coming, the principal saw the photographer multiple times in the hall -- but he was still asked to leave and delete all his photos that contained any images of children after spending two hours taking some beautiful pictures.

I understand the desire to protect your children. But some people take it too far. Unfortunately, because people are so obsessed with privacy, what is lost here will be those wonderful, professional photos of a unique moment in the lives of these children.

While the pictures of the backs of kids heads are cool - I think that 50 years from now folks will look at them and wonder what in the heck was our society thinking? It's a strange testament to the fear that permeates society - an ungrounded fear. As previously stated, most abuse comes from within friends and families of the children, not strangers! What all of this mass paranoia is really doing is robbing our children of their carefree childhood of fun and adventure- and that is the greatest threat of all to kids.

I agree with adrienne. I used to work with public schools and there was almost always a bad divorce going on. One time our school had to go into lock down as there was a threat from a non custodial parent who was trying to kidnap their son. I would have supported that mom having her son in a school that the dad did not know about. It would be a real shame to have that information published without asking the mom for permission.

Personally, the thought of my kiddos appearing the newspaper is fine. I remember it always being an exciting thing to be in the paper growing up. My kids also have no known threats against them. Yet, as they say, it takes a village and if part of that is having to sign additional paperwork for photos in order to keep others parent's kids safe, I'm for it.

all this reminded me of when i was in 6th grade, i had a teacher Mr. EVIL ..(Levi), he was a creep and everyone knew he was a creep, and i told my mom i got weird vibes from him, but no one said anything about it. he liked to take pictures of us for the "school year book", i guess the bathroom wasnt a good place for school photos to be taken, and luckily he was arrested. kids got into trouble if they spoke about him the next year. i hate schools. so from that experience, id say i would want my kid to tell me if someone was taking pictures of them, and id want to see a consent form.

Most of the people here are worried about creeps seeing these photos (which I agree is a little overboard).

My concern is them being used for commercial purposes without my knowledge. Stock photography is big business and I have no interest in seeing my child's face pop up in an ad that I didn't know about. (Remember that family who saw their Facebook picture in an ad while on vacation in Germany?)

But I would like to add the argument that schools aren't public places. They might be public property yes but most schools (esp elementary) are on serious lockdown these days. When we were house shopping, one public school wouldn't let us look around at the building (we had our realtor with us and the school didn't even have kids in it!). Needless to say we didn't buy a house in that neighborhood.

A cute (and drunk) coed took a photo of my little boy when we were at a bar before a college football game. When I went to work the next day, one of our student interns asked me, "Hey, isn't that your son?" And sure enough, there he was on a friend-of-a-friend's Facebook page tagged as "cutest baby ever"! I was so proud I could have burst.

Was I worried that a predator, presumably using some combination of facial-recognition technology, Google Maps and magic, was going to figure out our name and address and steal him away? Nope.

Is it really that hard for artists or students to obtain parental permission to take photographs?

As an artist who works with video a lot, I am very familiar with consent or "Talent" forms and I think they're very appropriate *especially* where children are involved. I did a project with an elementary school class, made the request a month ahead of time, parental consent forms were drawn up and every child except for one was able to participate in the video interviews. It's a shame that very real threats force us to be so protective of our children, but of course, we'd rather protect them than not.

The only thing I miss is the lack of exploring. When I was a kid, I could wander about two miles from home at age 9 or 10. Most American parents wouldn't consider that safe now days. I honestly can't decide whether unsupervised "wandering" is safe or not, though I think it used to be.

I feel I would trust the school to judge whether a photographer is legitimate, but there are still circumstances in which parents may not want their childrens photos published. Like foster or adopted children whose biological parents should not know where they go to school, for the children's safety.