A Geek's Life

Matt Langford blogs about intentionally posting fewer photos of his kids’ faces online. The part of the reasons which resonates with me is:

A photo posted today can end up indexed, copied, saved, scraped, screenshotted, and fed into who knows what. That sounds dramatic, but it also sounds like Tuesday. Even if the original post disappears later, there is no real promise that the photo disappeared with it.

Whilst I hadn’t taken the time to articulate my thoughts, I have implemented a similar strategy, using photos from behind, the side or blurred with Gemini on occasion. Beyond their online safety, there is a personal angle for me which is that my blog is pseudonymous and identifiable pictures could be the (unintended) link between my blog and the real world. My two thankfully never made it to Google Photos as all my photos live on a self-hosted Immich instance.

Given how many birthday parties, school events and the odd kid’s church social media post they feature in, I fear their faces are online already. I just won’t contribute to that, for what it is worth.

Written as part of the JulyReply series