Photographs od school kids for parents

[boggo]

Hi all,

My kids go to the local non-profit community run kindergarten. (3-5 year olds)

At the moment, the teachers take pictures of the kids during the day, and then put these on a laptop at the front of the class so the parents can view them when they come to pick up the kids. I find that the parents are usually in a rush or busy talking, so very few actually look at the pictures.

So I was thinking to suggest to them to upload the pictures somewhere so that the parents could view them at a time more convinient and also keep them forever if they wish.

I would put them in a site which is password protected (a different password for each class) and at the start of the year the parents are issued with the password.

I am curious to know if there are any rules/laws about doing this concerning privacy laws or anything else? Would you need to get the parents permission? What if one parent objected or complained? Would you need to remove the pictures after the school year?

if anyone could give me a hint as to where i might find info on this it would be great!

Also can anyone suggest the best photo hosting site for hosting such pictures. I currently use smugmug and rate it highly, but not sure if there is a more appropriate site for schools?

cheers

[boggo]

I have also stumbled upon this website, which I think is fantastic for it's clear information

http://4020.net/words/photorights.php

From reading it, I cannot see any reason which would prevent the school puttign the pictures on a website?

[ricktas]

Check with the kindergarten, they probably have something in the fine print when you signed up, about photos. Most do! I reckon an initial informal discussion with the school is the way to go, and if you get a positive response, then look at contracts etc and arrange another more formal discussion with them.

Photobucket also lets you create password accessible galleries, not sure if it is on the free accounts or only the paid ones.

[Shelley]

As I work in a school, there is always a percentage that would not like photos shown of their children and whoever posts them, would need to be aware of that, if posting as part of the school community. I do heaps of school photos, but never show other than thru the school approved method. I always let the admin team do that, as I don't want to get caught out.

[MattNQ]

Photobucket does let you password protect on free accounts.
The free accounts limit the size of the image to 5Mb. Paid accounts let you load higher res images & do ftp etc, but 5Mb would be heaps for jpegs of classroom & general pics.

When my kids were in daycare & kindy, they were pretty strict on photos. You couldn't even take a picture of your kid with their friend without that parent's permission. So posting all kids images on a website (even password protected) would have probably been impossible without signed consent from all parents in that case.

But as per previous posts, check the centre's policys & rules & discuss with the centre. You can probably come to some workable arrangement.

[boggo]

Sorry, I think i must have not been clear enough about my involvement.

It would not be me doing the photos or uploading etc. I help them out with IT stuff, so I would simply set it up for them and the teachers would do the uploading themselves. So it would be a service that the kindy provides to all parents. Before I suggest it to them, i just wanted to know if there were any showstoppers.

Boggo

[kiwi]

I don't think there is anything legally, but I'm not a lawyer

I would be very careful and make sure it's fully supported by the kindy.

[Mark L]

I find that the parents are usually in a rush or busy talking, so very few actually look at the pictures.

Would this be any different if the photos were available as you've suggested. Would someone by spending time and effort and having "very few actually look at the pictures"?
Maybe that time could be put into selecting the best photos of each year and making a photobook for the interested parents to buy(at cost price) each year.
This site http://www.dropshots.com/ has password protection.

[reaction]

I would view this as 'legal but a bad idea'
if parents want to view pics they'll ask for them
put them online and you'll have to guarantee your security is hack proof etc etc. and other issues