TL;DR

School and sports photographers told BBC Wales, in a report published on Thursday 8 October, that parents are using AI tools to erase watermarks from preview images rather than pay. One says about a quarter of his proofs are now screenshotted for that purpose. A computer scientist warns that uploading children’s photos to AI services carries privacy and safeguarding risks that many parents may not realise.

The photographers’ case

Ian Gilbert, who runs Emotion Picture Photography in Pontypool, Torfaen, says he is alerted when a preview is screenshotted, and that roughly 25% of the images he sends out now are. He calls it “theft”, says profits have fallen over the past year, and notes that schools lose too because they take a share of sales. He prices photos from £9, and has overheard parents outside a school saying removing a watermark with AI costs them about a pound.

He is not alone. Victoria Welton, who works across 15 Somerset schools and nurseries, and Tessa Chapman, also in south Somerset, describe the same behaviour. Dylan Evans, a 21-year-old from Caersws in Powys who charges £2 a picture, found one of his football shots on a player’s Instagram with the watermark gone within hours of sending the album.

Gilbert says the firm he works with is developing countermeasures, including moving overlays that resist copying, and that prosecutions are being looked at by the Guild of Photographers.

The privacy risk

Cardiff School of Technologies computer scientist Dr Simon Thorne advises never uploading identifiable photos. Images could leak, be used to train later models or be sold, he says, and users often cannot tell how long a service keeps them. Group shots raise a further problem, since other children’s parents may not even know their child’s image was uploaded. He sees the episode as evidence of a wider gap in AI literacy.

Sonder & Clay trademark attorney Matthew Sammon says copyright sits with whoever took the picture, so stripping the watermark infringes it. Owners can seek an injunction, damages and costs, but legal action is costly for school photographers.

Looking forward

The BBC’s report is about money and consent rather than abuse, but it touches the same worry as the police warning about back-to-school photos we covered last month. In our view, the cost of enforcement is the real problem for these small UK firms: the law is on their side, but a court case over a £9 photo makes no commercial sense. Technical defences and clearer messaging to parents about what happens to an uploaded image look like their more realistic options.