daplight Loc: Kansas

I can imagine this has been covered extensively in the past-BUT-in regards to 'changing times' maybe some new members, (and possibly lawyers/legal expertise) might shed some new light on this topic.

Specifically, a community organization, (affiliated with a state university) I belong to is getting conflicting messages from within. Some say "Absolutely no pictures of minors at any of our community/public events without parental approval/signed consent." Couldn't the same apply to adults? In other words-why bother to take pictures to promote our organization (Extension Master Gardeners) that show masses of people-which we want to do to 'validate' our mission of reaching/teaching to the masses?

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

This is helpful, but you should check with the local authorities. Just don't go to Arkansas where they just passed SB-79 essentially making street photography illegal.

http://www.pdnonline.com/features/What-Photographers-N-10515.shtml

https://fstoppers.com/news/arkansas-senate-passes-bill-make-street-photography-illegal-state-65704

jim hill Loc: Springfield, IL

Seems like the land of Bill & Hillary is passing all kinds of restrictive crap these days.

I don't need any post-it notes to steer clear of that otherwise beautiful state.

TeeKay

Sounds unconstitutional to me. Bet they wouldn't do the same for gun control!

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

While I can understand not shooting young children without consent , how do you know if an older kid is or is not a minor. A i5 year old can easily be takn as an adult.Furthermore a signature would not inhibit a pervert. The regulation seems to be a prohibiton of photographing in a park.

daplight Loc: Kansas

That is one of many considerations we will have to make. The PR Committee I am on, exploring these option, will have to arrive at a consensus to work with in the future.

If there is anyone else who has experiences in this realm--events attended by the public--please feel free to pass on your thoughts and experiences. Sometimes you almost feel it isn't worth the trouble to document history. Thanks anyway for all the input.

cmikal

Similar, but not identical situation:
Our local High School has a rule stating that all students automatically consent to having their pictures taken for publicity or recruiting purposes by virtue of the fact they enrolled, unless they give specific written dissent to the school district forbidding the District from using photos of their child. I'm sure most of the parents in the district aren't even aware of the rule. I'm also unaware if this has ever been challenged, as I was never convinced that such a rule could hold up in court.

The reason I am aware of the rule is because I was in charge of a booster group. We were a 501c3 organization with our own bylaws and rules, which were on file with the state and Federal government (as opposed to a lot of booster groups that are nothing more than a loosely organized group of parents with no formal structure).

I was also in charge of running the organization's web site and Facebook page. We posted lots of pictures of students on these pages. We instituted a rule stating that the only photos we would post or publish would be those taken of students when they were performing or when they were otherwise in a public location while preparing for a performance. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that what we did would have put us on a more solid footing if we were sued than if we followed the school districts's policy or had no policy at all. I think there is a slightly different standard involved when the people that are being photographed are in a public location.

A potential interesting side-note to this discussion: What happens if someone sues, claiming a photo of them was used without their consent, and upon investigation, you find thousands of photos of that same individual, taken by other people, posted all over the internet on Social Media sites? I would think that in today's massive social media era, a single claim of unauthorized use of an image would carry much less weight when there are hundreds or thousands of unauthorized images of that same person floating around the galaxy that have gone unchallenged.

Just a thought.