France's privacy law paves way for penalties parents may face if they post photos of their children without consent
French parents are being warned by legal experts to stop posting pictures of their children on social media networks as a precaution against any possible future lawsuits they may face for violating their children's privacy rights or risking their security by sharing their personal information.
Under France's stringent privacy laws, parents could face penalties as severe as a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros if they publicize the intimate details of others' private lives – particularly those of their children – without their consent.
Eric Delcroix, an expert on Internet law and ethics, said that children could easily take their parents to court for publishing photos of them when they were younger in a few years.
Adults who sue their parents for breaching their right to privacy as children could obtain substantial compensation awards, according to French legal experts.
Speaking to the French newspaper Le Figaro, he said people should think about how their children will feel later in life about images of them as infants or adolescents being posted on Facebook or other social networks.
"Children at certain stages do not wish to be photographed, still less for those photos to be made public," he added.
