Daniel Susser is an assistant professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. He works in philosophy of technology, with a focus on its normative (social/political/ethical) dimensions. And he bravely tried to tackle the question of whether parents should post pictures of their children online, or if it violates their privacy.
You can view his commentary on Penn State News. Maybe some of the points he raises will help you make decisions for yourself.
I suspect Joe Cadillic will find the comments unsatisfactory because Susser doesn’t seem to address the risks of surveillance – can photos of your child run through facial recognition be used to identify them later in life, even if you don’t put your child’s name on the picture? Can pictures of their fingers be used to capture fingerprints that could be used against them as adults? There is so much surveillance capacity expanding exponentially that the privacy issues of today may actually result in criminal prosecution issues when the child is older.
Just something else to think about.
Well stated, I don’t think there’s much to say that you didn’t cover.
However it should be noted that Penn State is closely associated with DHS.
They have a ‘Master of Professional Studies in Homeland Security’ course and a “Penn State and Homeland Security” search turned up 943,000 hits.
Many universities have close ties to DHS, so don’t expect Professors to speak out against surveillance.
I have been finding it creepier and creepier to post any photo online through any social media outlet. It’s just the thought that anyone can right click and save your photo to send to someone else through their phone or computer is very concerning. (Even though fb will get around this by saying, oh We have customized settings for our users. Yeah that is not encryption, so try again).
I would like to see more encryption in these digital social online areas… However with how this has been going for the past number of years, it’s not looking too good. Maybe I am asking for too much