A mother who posts on TikTok as @purelymegs said she caught two strangers taking zoomed-in photos of children at Disneyland.
She said the first incident involved her daughter and a woman who had about 10 photos on her phone. The second involved a man whose phone held 15 photos of her child and a friend’s child.
In a TikTok video, she described both encounters and urged other parents to pay attention to who is photographing their children.
Mother Opened Her Video With a Warning
The mother described her video as a public service announcement for parents who take their children to Disneyland.
She said she had now faced “not one, but now two occasions” of someone unrelated to her children taking pictures of them.
The mother said the first incident happened while her daughter posed for a photo with Pluto and the mother was taking the photos herself.
She said she walked away afterward and two women approached her. They asked if she knew a certain girl.
“I said, No,” the mother said. The women told her the girl had been taking zoomed-in pictures of her daughter.
The mother said her first reaction was disbelief: “I was like, What? That can’t be right”.
Mother Said She Confronted the Woman and Checked Her Phone
The mother said she walked up to the woman and asked whether she had been photographing her daughter.
The woman became flustered and denied it. “No, no, no, no, no. I’m just taking pictures of the character Pluto. Just the character,” the mother said the woman told her.
The mother said she asked to see the photos. “The woman acted as if she did not know how to use her phone”. She then opened her photo album.
“Sure enough, there are like ten zoomed-in photos of just my daughter,” the mother said. The photos showed her daughter’s face with the character.
The mother said she told the woman to delete the photos. When the woman said she didn’t know how, the mother offered to do it and the woman agreed.
The mother said she deleted the photos, then went into the phone’s deleted folder and removed them there too.
She told her husband afterward: “It was just weird, icky. I don’t like that.”
Mother Said a Second Incident Happened the Next Visit
The mother said she returned to Disneyland the day before she posted her video. She was with a friend and their daughters were taking pictures with Anna from Frozen.
She said her daughter was finished, so the group stepped back. That was when she noticed an older man.
“Older man zooming in on my friend’s daughter’s face. Just her face,” the mother said.
She said she walked over to him and asked if he was taking pictures of the girl; by then, she had “no chill.”
Mother Said the Man Gave a Similar Response
The mother said the man gave the same answer as the woman. “No, no, no, no, no, just the character,” he told her.
She asked to see his phone and he agreed. She said he also seemed to struggle with his phone, then opened it.
“There are 15 photos of my child and my friend’s child zoomed in on his phone. Nothing of Anna,” the mother said.
She began to see a pattern. “Okay, this is a thing,” she thought.
The mother said she asked the man to delete the photos and remove them from the recently deleted folder. She said he responded, “I don’t know how to do that.”
She then told him, “That’s weird. I’m gonna report you, and stop taking photos of other people’s kids.” She added that she did not think the man had a child with him.
Mother Urged Parents to Stay Alert
The mother said she wouldn’t have known about the first incident if the two women hadn’t spoken up.
She told viewers to be aware of who is photographing their children. She understood that Disneyland is a public place and that children end up in the background of other people’s photos.
She asked, “But zoomed-in photos to that extent? What are you doing with those?”
She was baffled. “It disgusts me”. She also said Disney “should be very aware” that people were taking photos of other people’s children.
The mother ended her video by repeating her message. “It’s just weird. That’s just your public service announcement for today,” she concluded.
