Work's Facebook

Mojoworking

My place of work has a facebook account on which they put photos of events we hold etc I do not have a facebook account (apart from the one opened at work which I don't use anyway and has nothing on).

I don't put anything at all from my personal life on facebook, none of my friends do either (to my knowledge!) as they know I don't want to be on there.

My place of work know I don't like my photo even being taken and I've now discovered photos of me on the facebook page, I've said I don't like it and I'd rather they weren't on there - but as no one else minds - it keeps getting dismissed.

Now I've just found photos of our works christmas night on there (which we had to pay for ourselves!) and I'm just not happy.

Am I just being a moaner or do I have any grounds to get them to stop doing this.

I think the fact that christmas night was on my time, with my money is the straw that has broke the camels back as all the other times I'm told "you signed your contract there's your agreement to your photo being taken".

thank you in advance for any advice.

PlutoinCapricorn

I became a home based freelancer partly to get away from office life, office customs and this sort of thing.

I too hate having my photo taken, and never use social media. In my experience, introverts give their employers their money's worth more than sociable extroverts do, but the latter are more popular.

All you can do is protest I think.

SarEl

Mojoworking wrote: »

My place of work has a facebook account on which they put photos of events we hold etc I do not have a facebook account (apart from the one opened at work which I don't use anyway and has nothing on).

I don't put anything at all from my personal life on facebook, none of my friends do either (to my knowledge!) as they know I don't want to be on there.

My place of work know I don't like my photo even being taken and I've now discovered photos of me on the facebook page, I've said I don't like it and I'd rather they weren't on there - but as no one else minds - it keeps getting dismissed.

Now I've just found photos of our works christmas night on there (which we had to pay for ourselves!) and I'm just not happy.

Am I just being a moaner or do I have any grounds to get them to stop doing this.

I think the fact that christmas night was on my time, with my money is the straw that has broke the camels back as all the other times I'm told "you signed your contract there's your agreement to your photo being taken".

thank you in advance for any advice.

If you feel strongly enough on the matter to make waves at work, you are correct. It is unlawful to publish (not to take, but to publish) photo's of people without their agreement. It is also potentially quite dangerous for the company to do this - for all they know you are in witness protection or fleeing domestic violence, and carelessly publishing photographs of people could identify those who do not wish to be found and/or put them in harms way.

I would start by checking where it says in your contract that the company has the right to take and publish your photo, because we both know there isn't such a clause, don't we? But the company must be able to point out where you signed this, since they are quoting it. You should then, having satisfied yourself that you have not signed anything to this effect, raise a grievance and insist that you do not give such permission and all photos of you should be removed.

But as I said, whilst I agree with you in principle, make sure that it is really worth it to you to start down this route of formal action over the photographs.

Uncertain

SarEl wrote: »

If you feel strongly enough on the matter to make waves at work, you are correct. It is unlawful to publish (not to take, but to publish) photo's of people without their agreement.

Sorry but that is a very sweeping statement! Context is everything here and I suspect many people reading that will jump to the wrong conclusions.

Newspapers publish photos of people every day without their permission and it is only under rare circumstances that they are open to any action as a result.

This used to be an area in which I had a specialist knowledge although I am happy to admit I am getting well out of date. The growing judge made privacy "laws" are complicating this and some seem to be making it up as they go along!

Also there are so many popilar misconceptions about (generally non-existant) restrictions on taking photograph that the Metropolitan Police have even produced a pdf download. Some of their own officers could do with reading it!

It used to be far simpler. In a public place you could take a photograph of anybody and do pretty much whatever you liked with it. In many respects you were better off it you didn't have their permission as the moment you asked them they became a model and acquired some rights. You could libel somebody with a photograph, if a reasonable person seeing it would draw a false conclusion about what it showed.

In a private place it is more complex as it may have been a condition of entry that you do not take photographs or only do so under certain conditions.

To get back to the OP concerns, could they prevent an employer using their image taken at work or a work related event? Possibly under certain circumstances. Is is practical or wise to take formal action? I very much doubt it.

Mojoworking

Thanks everyone for replying - I guess all I can do try to appeal to their better nature ...

Mojoworking

PlutoinCapricorn wrote: »

I became a home based freelancer partly to get away from office life, office customs and this sort of thing.

I too hate having my photo taken, and never use social media. In my experience, introverts give their employers their money's worth more than sociable extroverts do, but the latter are more popular.

All you can do is protest I think.

Have you got any jobs going???

agrinnall

There was a mention on Click this morning that Facebook are making it easier for people to remove photos of them that other people have posted, I didn't pay much attention but if you watch the episode from the link I've given you may get a better idea of what can be done.

Mojoworking

thank you for that - just to update, the works night out photos are not on the work facebook (my mistake) there had been a post saying about it, and then the photos are on my bosses facebook account. I wasn't aware we were friends, but must've done it on the day we set up my account. The photos - or a link/copy of them? are now sat on my account in my "timeline". When I clicked on them I had wrongly assumed it had taken me to the work account.

I followed the link on click and that could be useful, I'm going to have to think about this as this is my personal issue I wish I could be one of these people who are happy in front of the camera!

Uncertain

Mojoworking wrote: »

I'm going to have to think about this as this is my personal issue I wish I could be one of these people who are happy in front of the camera!

I think you would be far better to try and deal with this informally. I fully understand how you feel but I'm sure it wouldn't even occur to many people that some have problem with this sort of thing. Few would want to deliberately cause you a problem so a quiet chat may be all that is needed.

SarEl

Since the OP seems to be unclear, I am not going to comment further except to say that the rules relating to newspapers are somewhat different than those which apply to private citizens, although even they must be quite careful. They must be able to demonstrate that what they publish is in the public interest - prurient and extraneous publication without justification is not permitted. The two reasons why newspapers seldom have actions taken against them is (a) they are very familiar with interpreting the law and seldom stray across the line and (b) those UK publications which publish photographs which might be generally considered to be in poorer taste / legally questionable are generally focussing on "celebrities" who actually, despite what they may say, invite and encourage this sort of publicity to maintain their dubious status as household names.

j.e.j.

I don't do FaceBook or social media either, and I can sympathise fully with the OP's concerns.

IF they were to put photos of you on a public facebook page (and it looks like they haven't this time) could you perhaps come to a compromise? If there's a photo of a group of you and you're included in it, for example, could you ask them to pixelate your face/image and ensure that you are not tagged or identifiable?