Parents turn to ChatGPT for cheaper school portraits, raising privacy concerns

### Parents Turn to AI to Create School Portraits as Photography Costs Rise

As school picture season returns, some parents are turning to artificial intelligence tools to create school-style portraits of their children at home, offering a potentially cheaper alternative to traditional professional photography.

The trend has gained attention on social media, where parents are sharing experiments involving AI platforms such as ChatGPT. Instead of purchasing conventional school photo packages, some families are taking their own pictures against simple backgrounds and using AI to give the images a more traditional school-portrait appearance.

The trend drew attention on TikTok after user Carlie Bond shared how she created school-style portraits for her three children. Bond photographed the children against a plain background and then asked ChatGPT to preserve their appearance while making the pictures look like traditional school photographs.

She shared the results under the hashtag #MomHack, describing the approach as a way to avoid paying for school pictures for three children. Her post quickly attracted reactions from other parents who said professional school photography can become expensive when multiple children are involved.

One commenter joked that parents using the technique could eventually put traditional school photography companies out of business. Another said the cost of obtaining digital images for four children had approached $170.

The financial incentive is one of the main reasons the trend is gaining traction. School photography packages can commonly cost families tens of dollars per child, with prices increasing depending on the number of digital images, prints and additional products included.

For families with several children, the total bill can quickly exceed $100, making an at-home alternative appealing to parents looking to reduce school-related expenses.

However, not everyone has been impressed with the results produced by AI. Some users said image-generation tools can unintentionally modify facial features or other characteristics even when users specifically instruct the system to preserve the person's appearance.

That concern is particularly relevant when the subjects are children. Parents may want the finished image to look polished while still accurately representing their child's face, hairstyle and other distinguishing characteristics.

The trend has also expanded into more controversial territory, with some users reportedly attempting to use AI tools to remove watermarks from professional photographs they have not purchased.

That practice raises separate copyright concerns. A watermark is often used by photographers to prevent unauthorized use of preview images, and removing one without permission can potentially violate copyright law depending on the circumstances.

Under U.S. copyright law, statutory damages for copyright infringement can range from $750 to $30,000 per infringed work, with damages potentially reaching $150,000 for willful infringement in certain cases.

Beyond copyright, children's privacy presents another important issue. When parents upload photographs of their children to an AI service, the images are being transferred to an external technology platform and may be processed according to that service's policies.

The implications can depend on how a particular AI provider handles uploaded images, including its rules regarding storage, processing, model improvement and deletion.

Some parents have expressed concern that uploading children's photographs to AI systems could create long-term privacy implications because facial images and likenesses are sensitive forms of personal information.

The debate highlights a broader trade-off surrounding the use of generative AI for everyday family needs. AI tools can potentially help parents save money and produce customized images without professional photography equipment.

At the same time, the technology can introduce concerns about whether generated portraits accurately represent children, how uploaded photographs are handled and whether AI is being used to modify or reproduce copyrighted professional work.

For parents considering AI-generated school portraits, the trend demonstrates both the convenience and the complications of increasingly accessible image-generation technology. What began as a simple cost-saving experiment is also raising broader questions about privacy, authenticity and copyright in an era when creating realistic images requires little more than a smartphone and a text prompt.