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Family Privacy Plan

This tool needs JavaScript to build your sheet, and without it nothing on this page builds one.

The short version to write on paper: Nothing in this plan needs the form. On any piece of paper: list what kinds of thing exist, say for each one whether it stays home, goes to people you chose, or goes public, and write down who has to agree before anything leaves. If an image of your child is being used to harm or threaten them, that is a matter for the police and the specialist services where your child is, today, and for the emergency services now if anyone is in immediate danger. It is not a matter for a family agreement.

Nothing saved yet

What is this about?

Categories only. Do not type a file name, an account, a link or anything that identifies your child. It starts earlier than most people expect: a scan photo, an announcement and a due date are already about them, and the health part of that is about whoever was pregnant as well.

The kinds of thing this plan covers

Does any of it leave the house?

This is the question the whole plan turns on. Answer for what actually happens now, not for what you would prefer.

How it is handled today

Which way does each one go?

You said it depends on the category, so this is where you say what it depends on. One line each, and a line you cannot answer yet is worth more than a line you guess.

Where each kind of thing goes (Optional)

Write one of four answers on each line: "stays home", "shared privately", "public", or "still to decide". A blank line reads as "still to decide". Health and photographs are the two that suffer most from a general permission, so answer their lines on purpose, even if the answer is the same as the one above.

Who gets a say?

Including your child. Their view is not a formality, and a refusal has to mean something or it is not a view.

People whose agreement is needed before something goes out

How your child's view is handled

Asking can use words, pictures, sign, a communication device, or extra time to answer. Revisit decisions as your child’s views and communication needs change.

Roughly how old they are (Optional)

A band, not a birth date, and only because it changes how you would ask.

Kept at home: what does that actually mean?

"It stays with us" is a decision worth writing down, because most of the ways it stops being true are accidents. Private and local are not the same word either: a backup in the cloud is storage somewhere else, even when only you know the password.

What staying at home means here (Optional)

Roles, not accounts and never a password.

Shared privately: with whom, and on what terms?
What actually goes out to them (Optional)

Tick only what has been agreed to leave the house. A category this plan covers is not a category anyone is cleared to send, and anything you have decided stays at home does not belong on this list. If you answered the earlier lines category by category, nothing you marked there as staying home or as still to decide should be ticked here.

Who it goes to (Optional)

Roles, not names.

What we ask of them (Optional)

Posted publicly: what are the boundaries?

Posting publicly is a normal thing that families do. Writing down the edges of it is what makes it a decision. Naming a category on the first step does not put it online: what goes up is still decided one thing at a time.

Never posted publicly (Optional)

How we post when we do (Optional)

The family archive: where it lives and who can open it

Roles and general places only, such as "the external drive at home" or "the other parent". Never an account name, a password, a recovery code or a private link. Every line is optional, and a line left blank prints as still to decide.

Connected devices, if you want to look

Optional. This page cannot check a device, and it does not ask for a recording, a file or an account. The answers come from the device, its settings and its documentation.

For instance "the speaker in the kitchen". No brand account, no serial number.

Write what you found, or leave it blank until you have looked.

How does somebody ask for it to come down?

Inside the family first. What a platform or a service will do about it depends entirely on where you live, and this page does not pretend to know.

Anybody in the plan should be able to ask, including your child, without building up to it.

What happens when they do (Optional)

Write the first thing you would do and the first thing you would have to find out. This page does not name a service for you: who you ask, and what they can do about it, is set country by country.

The service or person, and the date you asked. Not the link, not the account.

Only what you were able to check yourself, for instance a written confirmation or a search that no longer finds it. Something you can no longer see may still exist elsewhere. A request sent is not a deletion.

When do you come back to this?

Choose a date, an event, or a regular time to review it together.

What brings it forward (Optional)

Why there is no takedown service named here

You may be expecting a list of who to contact. There is not one, and the reason is worth explaining.

The legal routes and the reporting services that matter are set country by country. Naming them for one country means getting that country's law, its regulator and its services right, and this page carries none of that, so it names none of it.

A list of services that was right for one country and wrong for yours would be worse than nothing, because you would act on it. A generic version would be wrong everywhere.

What the book carries instead is how to work out the route where you live: which kind of body handles it, what to have ready before you contact them, and what to expect. That does not go out of date the way a list of phone numbers does.

The sources at the foot of this page include the material this plan is built on, with the territory each one applies to written next to it. Read the territory before you read the source.

Where this sheet stops

If an image of your child is being used to harm or threaten them, this is not the page for it. That is a matter for the police and the specialist services where your child is, today, and for the emergency services now if anyone is in immediate danger. Tell your child they are not in trouble, do not pay anyone and do not confront whoever is doing it. Do not make a new copy, screenshot or forward of the material: keep only identifiers without content, such as the account name, the page address and the time, and let the service handling it say what to do with the rest.

What this will not do
  • It uploads nothing and deletes nothing, and it cannot reach a photo that is already on a platform. Your answers are worked out in the browser; "Keep on this device" saves them in this browser on this device, and "Clear this tool" takes them back out.
  • A copy you print, paste or send is out of its hands from that moment. It is a page about your child, so treat it like the rest of the paper about your child.
  • It is not legal advice and it does not make you compliant with anything. Rights over a child's image, and who may exercise them, are set by the law where you live and differ between countries.
  • It cannot make a platform take something down, and it will not tell you a removal is guaranteed. Some things cannot be removed at all.
  • It gives you no technical protection. Nothing here encrypts, locks or secures a single file.
  • It cannot settle a situation that needs a professional: a court order or protection measure, an adoption or foster placement, a dispute over who holds parental authority, a data breach, health or biometric data, or a serious conflict over a child's image. In those cases, ask the qualified professional or service where you live before sharing anything.
Privacy and sources

Everything you type is worked out on this device. None of it is sent anywhere, and saving is a button you press on purpose.

Sources of this tool

  • Sharing photos and videos of your child on social networks: what risks

    CNIL. Backs the private-versus-published split. French regulator. Does not apply outside its territory.

  • General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679)

    European Union. Source for the consent-is-revocable framing. European Union law. Under the conditions of its Article 3, it can also apply to some handling of personal data outside the Union. Check which rules apply where you live.

  • Take It Down FAQ

    NCMEC. An NCMEC service for nude, partially nude or sexually explicit images or videos taken before age 18, usable from any country, including if the person is now an adult. Use the original device where the image or video was taken, only if the file is already there. The file stays there; only its digital fingerprint is submitted. If that device is unavailable, seek human help or make a CyberTipline report without obtaining a copy. Never obtain, request, download or forward an image to use the service. Participating platforms can use it on public or unencrypted services; removal everywhere is not guaranteed. Urgent protection and human help must never wait for this tool.

  • Online privacy checklist for parents

    UNICEF. Backs the privacy and contact sections of the plan.

The book's references for chapter 33

If an image of your child is being used to harm or threaten them, this is not the page for it. That is a matter for the police and the specialist services where your child is, today, and for the emergency services now if anyone is in immediate danger. Tell your child they are not in trouble, do not pay anyone and do not confront whoever is doing it. Do not make a new copy, screenshot or forward of the material: keep only identifiers without content, such as the account name, the page address and the time, and let the service handling it say what to do with the rest.