French parents could be BANNED from sharing photos of their children

French parents could be BANNED from sharing photos of their children on social media under new privacy laws

• The bill would empower courts to ban parents from posting photos of their kids
• MP Bruno Studer, who proposed legislation, said it aimed to ’empower parents’

French parents could be banned from sharing photos of their children on social media under legislation agreed today.

The bill, which was passed by the country’s National Assembly, would give courts the power to ban parents from posting photos of their youngsters online.

Both parents would be jointly responsible for their children’s image rights and any decision to post them online would involve the child based on ‘his or her age and degree of maturity’, with courts able to ban posting if either parent disagreed.

Parents could also lose authority over their children’s image rights if posting them ‘seriously affects the child’s dignity or moral integrity’.

MP Bruno Studer, who proposed the bill earlier this month, said the law aimed to ’empower parents’ and show young people their parents don’t have an ‘absolute right’ over their image.

The bill, which was passed by France’s National Assembly, would give courts the power to ban parents from posting photos of their children online

Mr Studer said in an interview with Le Monde: ‘A 13-year-old child has an average of 1,300 images of themselves circulating on the internet.

‘These are photos that can be misused for child pornography or that can lead to bullying in the school environment.’

The proposed law comes after a growth in the trend of ‘sharenting’, which constitutes one of the main risks to children’s privacy, according to the bill’s explanatory statement.

It also said 50 per cent of photographs used in child pornography forums were originally posted by parents on social media.

Mr Studer added ‘The first two articles aim to establish the protection of privacy as one of the responsibilities of parents as holders of parental authority, for which they must obviously involve the child.’

‘In the most extreme cases, it is provided that the family judge may, if necessary, make a forced partial delegation of parental authority for the specific case of an exercise of image rights.’

The bill still needs to go through the French Senate and be promulgated by the president before it becomes law.

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