A photographer has issued an urgent warning to parents using AI on their kids’ photos as it’s putting their little ones ‘in danger’.
When Ian Gilbert heard parents boasting at the school gates about using AI to avoid paying for their little ones’ school photos, he was shocked.
The photographer claims he’s noticed a 25% drop in sales since the trend emerged.
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But it’s not his earnings that he’s most worried about – it’s the safety of the children.
“Most parents likely view it as a harmless shortcut,” Ian, who owns Emotion Picture Photography, from Pontypool, told What’s The Jam.
“But they don’t realise the privacy trade-offs, the terms of service agreements or where those facial data points might end up.
“Data privacy and child safety are the biggest concerns.
“When parents upload high-resolution images of minors to third-party, unregulated AI websites to strip watermarks, those childrens’ biometric likenesses are often ingested into external servers.
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“Or machine learning training sets.
“[This means that your child’s face] could be used for image generation software without ongoing consent.
“In some cases, this data can feed into facial recognition search engines and identity matching tools, which, over time, link a child’s likeness across multiple online appearances.
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“I think a lot of parents don’t realise – and it’s very scary – that by submitting a picture to AI, you’re allowing it, by default, to do whatever it wants.”
The photographer also notes there’s a high risk of the photos becoming vulnerable to misuse, such as for deepfakes or for fraudulent purposes.
Worst of all, due to the terms of service on these websites, parents are likely to lose any legal right to request its deletion from their systems.
Ian, aged 47, is urging parents to think twice before uploading their child’s photograph for their own safety.
But he also wishes that they would understand how this impacts the photographers, as it’s essentially theft.
He said: “It is pure theft – not only from us as independent creators, but from the schools as well.
“Many school fundraising and commission structures rely heavily on image sales.
“To put it into perspective, a parent wouldn’t dream of walking into a physical shop, taking the security tag off a product and walking out with the item without paying.
“Yet that exact scenario is happening here digitally.”
Ian, who is notified when photos have been screenshot for AI use, charges just £9 for the photos in a bid to be affordable.
However, with this sharp profit loss, he’s questioning whether the gig is feasible anymore.
While he’s not confronted any parents directly, he’s taking steps to protect his work – and livelihood.
He added: “I’m implementing secure client galleries, using prominent multi-layer proofing watermarks and keeping online previews at lower resolutions.
“I’m also ensuring clear copyright terms are stated across all client touchpoints.
“We need stricter legal accountability for AI developers regarding unauthorised data harvesting and better enforcement of digital copyright online.
“Crucially, we need to see actual prosecutions or successful copyright claims against this type of theft.”
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