Whose Album Is It? — Six Years of Gradually Transferring Ownership

Audience
Parents of school-age children
Target length
~1,400 words
Status
Draft v1 (translated from Japanese v1)
Original
../208_album_ownership.md

Lead

Who owns the photo taken at a child's sixth birthday? A parent pressed the shutter, uploaded it to the cloud, and shared it with the grandparents. When the same child is twelve and says "please delete that," what does the parent say?

The question is a practical one about digital record-keeping, but it is also a developmental and ethical question about when, and in what increments, a child's autonomy over their own image is recognized. Album ownership is not something handed over in a single event. It is possible to design a gradual transfer across six years.