Everything can be sold with a dog, dolphin and child. Politicians know this too, but since the dolphin does not move well on the beach, the dog can bite it, the best choice seems to be the child. Everyone seems more sympathetic in the company of cute children, it's a shame that they usually forget to ask the parents if their child can be in a picture with the politician in the press. A group of parents - regardless of party - wants to put an end to this, you can join them
Has your child ever dressed in national costume at a stadium ceremony? Has it ever happened that you didn't sleep in the kindergarten that day because the good politician uncle got around to handing out Santa Claus packages to the children right after lunch - of course accompanied by the camera of the local television station?
No? It's okay to be late, it's okay. As the elections approach, it will become more and more likely that at some point someone will use your child's school or kindergarten for campaign purposes.
Such cases are presented by the Facebook community called "The child is not a campaign tool", which was created because, as parents, they were satisfied that their children's faces were used by politicians for campaign purposes without their consent.
Sarolta Rácz, one of the creators of the group, directly asked us not to mention any party, since the request not to use the children's faces for campaign purposes applies to all politicians and political organizations alike.
The goal of the group is to create a law: if children are not photographed in connection with school/kindergarten work, they can only be used in the press with the prior written consent of the parents.
“We don't want our children and grandchildren to appear on TV or in newspapers as campaign tools for politicians based on a general authorization signed by everyone at the beginning of a school year.
According to the general rule, politicians should go to school to do their work without a photographer, and children should appear in the newspaper without politicians! Never again led a kindergarten group out on command!” - it says in the description of the group.
There is something in this
In most educational institutions, at the beginning of the school year, parents are actually asked to sign a paper in which they consent to the publication of photos of the child at the institution's events. However, according to Sarolta Rácz, this does not mean at all that a politician can use the children's faces for his own election campaign. Politicians should prove that the parents trust them and want a joint appearance by obtaining individual permits.
The founders of the group want this right of children and parents to be guaranteed by law, for this purpose they contacted all 199 representatives of the Parliament by letter. There were those who sided with them, but there were those who refused the request in an instructive tone.
We also contacted the data protection commissioner's office with our questions, but have not yet received an answer.
A lawyer we interviewed believes that the consent that the school signs with the parents at the beginning of the year should only apply to school events. Events for political campaign purposes must be separated from these, i.e. if a politician appears at school or children are ordered to plant flowers with the representative candidate, it is no longer a school event, but a political one, for which a special permit is required for photography.
Most of the time, however, kindergarten teachers and teachers, who are existentially dependent on politicians, don't really know how to stand up and say that their group will not be an organic arrangement with any politician.
However, I would often do better. It happened to the child of the founders of the group that the pre-announced "Santa Claus" was unfortunately unable to arrive at the kindergarten because his sleigh was broken, although in reality the politician campaigning in this way had something more important to do than playing with the children in the kindergarten. You can imagine how disappointed the children were that Santa Claus was not coming, but this was no longer such an important consideration in the given case.
It also happened that afterwards, a few days after the publication of the photographs in the press, the backdated declaration of consent was shoved in front of the parents' noses in order to cover for the politician, because someone made a scandal out of it.
And what do you think about it?
- I love seeing my child in the newspaper, they could even take a photo with Voldemort.
- Even I don't post a photo of my child, I don't let anyone else.
- They can only take photos with politicians I like.
- What in the world are politicians looking for in school?
- Why jump, they do what they want with us anyway.
