Q. My six year old daughter has been chosen to play Mary in the school nativity play and I'm absolutely delighted. I'm taking my digital camera along to take some photos, even though one of the other mothers said that the school won't allow it for "Data Protection" reasons. Since when has a photo been regarded as data? And anyway, surely the school can't stop me from taking photos of my own daughter?
A. When most people think of "data", they tend to think of written data such as a person's address or bank details or a list of client details held by a business. They do not think of photos or of videos footage of their own children in the school nativity. However, bizarre as it might seem, because photographs and videos create images which can be stored and processed electronically, they can be classified as data for legal purposes.
Having a child perform in the School Nativity is a very proud moment for any parent and it's natural that you would want to capture this on camera. I still remember how proud I felt when my eldest daughter was chosen for the part of a sheep, 3 years running too. I would pay a lot of money to have some photographs of her in that terrible costume now, but I don't have any because her school were concerned that they might be breaching the Data Protection regulations by allowing this.
However, the Regulations have since been clarified and I am pleased to be able to confirm that photos taken for purely personal use are exempt from the regulations. This means that parents are free to snap away, though I would suggest that you speak to the school beforehand out of courtesy to ensure that this doesn't interfere with the performance. And do watch out for the sheep's performance, comic gold in my experience.
