No single federal law bans posting pictures of minors on the internet, and a parent sharing a birthday photo is on very different legal footing than a stranger, a school, or a company that profits from a child’s image. The laws against posting pictures of minors on the internet come from several directions at once: federal criminal statutes that target sexually explicit material, a federal privacy rule that governs platforms rather than parents, school-records law that gives parents an opt-out for classroom photos, and a growing patchwork of state laws aimed at family vloggers and child influencers. Who you are, what the image shows, and where it’s posted decide which rules apply.
Who Can Legally Post a Child’s Picture
Consent is the hinge. The legal rules depend entirely on who is doing the posting and their relationship to the child.
Parents and Guardians
Parents generally have broad authority to share their own children’s images. No federal law requires a parent to get anyone else’s permission before posting a photo of their child to social media, and in most situations parental authority over a child’s likeness is treated as part of custodial rights. The exception is when parents disagree. In custody disputes, courts have increasingly weighed in on social media posting, and some custody orders explicitly restrict what each parent can share online.
Other countries have moved further. France enacted a law in 2024 reinforcing children’s image rights, requiring parents to consider the child’s privacy and allowing family courts to prohibit one parent from publishing images without the other’s consent. An Italian court in 2018 ordered a mother to stop posting photos of her teenage son after he filed a complaint alleging privacy violations. No U.S. jurisdiction has gone that far.
Third Parties
Anyone who is not the child’s parent or guardian faces stricter expectations. A teacher, relative, coach, or stranger who photographs and posts a child’s image without parental permission may face legal consequences depending on the circumstances and jurisdiction. There is no single federal statute that criminalizes a non-parent sharing a clothed, non-exploitative photo of a child, but many states have privacy laws, right-of-publicity protections, or harassment statutes that can apply when images are shared without consent.
Written consent is the safest approach for anyone other than a parent. Event organizers, sports leagues, and schools routinely use photo release forms for that reason. A verbal “go ahead” is difficult to prove later if a dispute arises.
Minors Consenting for Themselves
The age of majority in most states is 18, though Alabama and Nebraska set it at 19 and Mississippi at 21. Until a child reaches that threshold, parents or guardians control consent decisions about their images.
Schools and FERPA’s Directory Information Rule
Schools occupy a unique legal space. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, student photographs qualify as “directory information,” a category that schools may disclose without individual consent unless a parent opts out.1eCFR. 34 CFR 99.3 Schools commonly designate photos of students participating in public events like sporting events, concerts, and performances as directory information.2Student Privacy Policy Office. FAQs on Photos and Videos under FERPA
The opt-out right is the piece most parents miss. Schools are required to notify parents annually about what they classify as directory information and give parents a window to object. If you don’t submit the opt-out form, the school can publish your child’s photo in yearbooks, on the school website, in promotional materials, and in local media coverage without asking you again. If you do opt out, your request generally stays in effect until you rescind it in writing or the student graduates. The form is often bundled with other enrollment paperwork that parents sign without reading closely.
The Criminal Line: Sexually Explicit Images of Minors
Innocent family photos are not what federal criminal law targets. Sexually explicit images of minors are, and the penalties are severe. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2251, anyone who produces, distributes, or possesses sexually explicit images of minors faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum of 30 years for a first offense. A second conviction raises the range to 25 to 50 years, and a third or subsequent conviction carries 35 years to life.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 2251 – Sexual Exploitation of Children
An earlier statute, the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, tried to extend criminal liability to digitally generated images that appeared to depict minors. The Supreme Court struck down key provisions in 2002, ruling in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition that prohibiting images that merely “appear to be” of minors engaging in explicit conduct was unconstitutionally overbroad.4Justia US Supreme Court. Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 US 234 (2002) Congress responded with the PROTECT Act of 2003, which narrowed the language to address the Court’s concerns while preserving penalties for obscene digital images of minors and strengthening enforcement tools for sex offenses against children.5Office of Justice Programs. PROTECT Act of 2003
What COPPA Actually Regulates
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act is the federal law most people associate with kids and the internet, and it’s widely misunderstood. COPPA regulates website and app operators, not individual parents. It requires operators of commercial websites or online services directed at children under 13 to get verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from those children, and it defines personal information to include photographs, videos, and audio files containing a child’s image or voice.6Federal Trade Commission. Complying with COPPA: Frequently Asked Questions
COPPA is not triggered by a parent uploading photos of their children on a general audience site like Facebook or Instagram. The FTC has stated this directly, noting that COPPA covers information collected online from children, not information collected from adults that may pertain to children.6Federal Trade Commission. Complying with COPPA: Frequently Asked Questions When you post your child’s soccer highlights to your personal page, COPPA doesn’t apply to you. It applies to the platform.
Platforms directed primarily at children must assume any user uploading a photo is a child and must either obtain parental consent before posting or strip child images and metadata before content goes live. That’s why kid-focused apps often have stricter upload processes than general social media.
2025 Rule Updates
The FTC finalized significant changes to the COPPA rule in January 2025. Operators now need separate opt-in parental consent before disclosing children’s personal information to third parties for targeted advertising. The updated rule also limits how long operators can retain children’s personal information, prohibiting indefinite storage, and expands the definition of personal information to include biometric identifiers.7Federal Trade Commission. FTC Finalizes Changes to Children’s Privacy Rule Limiting Companies’ Ability to Monetize Kids’ Data The biometric addition matters because a child’s faceprint generated from uploaded photos now falls squarely within COPPA’s protections.
State Laws for Child Influencers and Family Vloggers
Children whose images directly generate income now have a legal category of their own. At least five states, Illinois, Minnesota, California, Utah, and Arkansas, have enacted laws requiring that a portion of earnings from content featuring minors be set aside in trust accounts the child can access at adulthood.
Illinois, which passed its law in 2023, requires vloggers to set aside a share of gross earnings proportional to the percentage of time a minor appears in the content, with the child entitled to at least half of that proportional amount. California’s law requires creators who feature minors in at least 30 percent of their content to place 65 percent of a proportionate share of total gross earnings into a trust. The trust account requirement is modeled on Coogan’s Law, which has protected child actors in traditional entertainment for decades.
If you produce content that features your children and generates any revenue, including ad revenue, sponsorships, or affiliate income, check whether your state has enacted protections. Penalties for noncompliance can be significant.
If Someone Posts Your Child’s Photo Without Permission
The available remedies depend on the nature of the image and the context. Speed matters: the longer an image stays up, the more likely it is to be copied and redistributed beyond the original platform’s reach. Report first, then evaluate legal action.
- Platform reporting. Every major platform has a reporting mechanism for unauthorized images of minors. Filing a report typically triggers a review, and platforms routinely remove content that violates their policies. This is usually the fastest path to a takedown.
- Civil claims. Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have grounds for a lawsuit based on invasion of privacy, misappropriation of likeness, or related torts. These claims can result in monetary damages and court orders requiring removal. Statutory damages in state privacy laws that cover minors range from roughly $100 to $5,000 per violation, though actual awards vary widely.
- Copyright takedown. If you took the photo yourself, you own the copyright and can file a DMCA takedown notice with the hosting platform. Copyright ownership belongs to the photographer, so this tool works when someone reposts a photo you took, but not when they post a photo they took of your child.
- Criminal referral. If the image is sexually explicit or exploitative, contact law enforcement immediately. Federal penalties under 18 U.S.C. § 2251 start at 15 years of imprisonment for a first offense. Reports also flow through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which coordinates with Internet Crimes Against Children task forces established under the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 2251 – Sexual Exploitation of Children8govinfo. S 1738 – PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008
What’s on the Horizon
Congress has introduced the Kids Online Safety Act in multiple sessions, most recently as S.1748 in the 119th Congress. The bill would impose a “duty of care” on covered platforms, requiring them to exercise reasonable care in designing features that affect minors and to prevent foreseeable harms including sexual exploitation, online harassment, and compulsive usage patterns.9Congress.gov. Text – S 1748 – 119th Congress (2025-2026) Kids Online Safety Act It would also require platforms to give minors settings that restrict access to their personal data and give parents supervision tools. Whether and when the bill passes is uncertain, but its provisions reflect where regulatory pressure is heading.