French parents could be FORBIDDEN from sharing photos of their children on social media

French parents could be banned from sharing photos of their children on social media, under legislation agreed today.

The bill, which was passed by the country’s National Assembly, would give courts the power to prohibit parents from posting photos of their children online.

Both parents would be jointly responsible for their children’s image rights and any decision to post them online would involve the child based on ‘his or her age and maturity’, with courts able to prohibit posting if one parent disagrees.

Parents could also lose custody of their children’s image rights if posting them “seriously impairs the child’s dignity or moral integrity.”

MP Bruno Studer, who proposed the bill earlier this month, said the bill was designed to “give parents more power” and show young people that their parents have no “absolute right” to their image.

Mr Studer said in an interview with Le monde: ‘A 13-year-old child has an average of 1,300 images of himself on the internet.

“These are photos that could be misused for child pornography or lead to bullying in the school environment.”

The bill follows a growing trend of “sharenting,” one of the most significant risks to children’s privacy, according to the bill’s explanatory memorandum.

It also said that 50 percent of photos used on child pornography forums were originally posted on social media by parents.

Mr. Studer added: ‘The first two articles aim to establish the protection of privacy as one of the responsibilities of parents as holders of parental authority, in which they must of course involve the child.’

‘In the most extreme cases it is provided that the family judge can, if necessary, make a forced partial delegation of parental authority for the specific case of an exercise of the portrait right.’

The bill still has to pass through the French Senate and be promulgated by the president before it becomes law.