Permitly User Manual

Welcome

Permitly keeps photos and videos of children off your website unless a parent has said yes. Each photo knows which children are in it and what their parents agreed to. Anything without consent is hidden automatically.

What it does for you

• Keeps one simple record per child: initials, a registration ID, and a yes or no for each way you use photos (website, social media, email newsletters, print, video).
• Shows the status of every photo and video in your Media Library.
• On the pages you choose, swaps any photo that is not cleared for a neutral placeholder as the page loads.
• When a parent takes consent back, hides that child's photos right away and gives your staff a dated checklist for everywhere else the photo was used.
• Keeps a full history, so you can show exactly what a parent agreed to and when.

What it never does

• It never deletes, moves or edits your photos or pages. Pausing or turning it off puts your site back exactly as it was.
• It never uses facial recognition.
• It never sends families' information anywhere. Consent records stay in your own WordPress database.

Free and Pro. The free plugin is complete on its own. Pro adds the online parent consent form in 18 languages, a paper form, an evidence report for each child, a revocation checklist, one shared registry across several sites, and tools for cleaning up large photo libraries.

Permitly helps you meet California AB 2007 and similar rules, but it is not legal advice. Ask your counsel about anything specific to your organization.

Free and Pro at a glance

Plans and limits

Every Pro plan includes every Pro feature. Plans differ by how many children are in your consent registry and how many WordPress sites you run.

• How children are counted. Every child with a record in your registry counts, including children who have left your programs, because their photos and consent still need managing. Records created by the demo do not count. The Dashboard and the Registry show how many you have and your plan's limit.
• When you reach your limit. Nothing changes for 14 days, and every Permitly screen shows the date. After that, these Pro tools pause until you upgrade: bulk tagging, page by page review, Cleanup, stock auto-sort, staff batches, embedded video review, roster import, new Swap photo choices, automatic translation, the people check and Quick sort.
• What never pauses. Hiding photos, the parent consent form, the paper form, revocations and the revocation checklist, the shared registry across your sites, the evidence report and every export. Permitly never stops protecting children, and your records are always yours.
• Upgrading. Select Upgrade plan on the notice, or open Permitly → Account. Paused tools turn back on as soon as the new plan is active.

Who can do what

Permitly follows your WordPress roles.

Authors and contributors can't open Permitly. Everything anyone changes is recorded in the Activity log with their name and the date.

Install and finish setup

Setup takes about ten minutes, and nothing on your live site changes until you choose to turn protection on. New installs start in Watch-only mode on Test pages only.

You'll need: WordPress 6.2 or newer, PHP 7.4 or newer, and an administrator account. It works on single sites and multisite networks, with classic and block themes and Elementor.

1. Install the plugin. In WordPress go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the Permitly zip, then Install Now and Activate. For Pro, install the Pro zip and enter your license key when asked.
2. Open Permitly in the left menu. The Dashboard shows a Finish setup card until your programs and locations are added.
3. Add your programs and locations. Click the button on the card, or go to Settings → Programs and locations. Enter one per line, for example "Summer Day Camp" and "North Branch". Staff choose from these lists when tagging photos, and parents choose from them on the form.
4. Check your organization details in Settings:
   • Organization name: shown to parents on the form.
   • Revocation and questions email: where parents write to take consent back. Use a shared inbox someone checks daily.
   • Alert email: where Permitly sends alerts about revocations and large changes.
5. Optional: choose a placeholder. Settings → Placeholder lets you pick an image (your logo, for example) to show in place of hidden photos. Otherwise a neutral gray box is used.
6. Optional: try the demo. Settings → Demo pages builds example photos (no real children), sample records and private test pages so your team can practice. Remove the demo from the Dashboard when you're done.

Next: add your children ("The consent registry") and tag your photos ("Tag your photos and videos").

How photo statuses work

Every photo and video gets one of five statuses, and only Cleared ones appear on protected pages. Permitly works out the status for you from how the photo is tagged and what each tagged child's parent agreed to.

The children in a photo always decide. If even one tagged child is Blocked or Revoked, the whole photo is hidden. Re-tagging that photo as stock or "not identifiable" cannot bring it back.

On the website, a photo is checked against website consent. The other uses (social media, email, print and video) are shown on each photo so staff know where else it can go.

Tag your photos and videos

Open Permitly → Review images to work through photos and videos that still need an answer. You can also tag any image from the Media Library: open it and look for the Permitly fields.

Review images only shows what could cause a problem. It opens on Needs a decision: images on your website that may show people and still need an answer, the ones on the most pages first. The rest sit in their own groups, one tap away:

Anything sorted automatically can go back with Put back in review on the image. Automatic sorting never changes an answer a person gave, and never applies to an image with children tagged.

For each photo, answer these:

Good habits

• Tag photos when you upload them, not months later. If a child in the photo isn't in the Registry yet, add them first, then tag.
• If you replace a photo's file, Permitly asks for a fresh review, because it might be a different picture.
• Videos in your Media Library are tagged the same way as photos.
• With Pro, you can select many photos on Review images and tag them in one go, or sort images with people one at a time in Quick sort (see "Sort a big library fast").

Quotes and stories. To show a child's quote or story only while their parent's consent stands, wrap it in a shortcode with their registration ID:

[cg_quote child="R-1001"]Camp was the best week of my summer.[/cg_quote]

Visitors see the quote only while that child is cleared for the website. Your staff see a small red note when it is hidden.

Sort a big library fast (Pro)

Most media libraries hold thousands of images, and most of them show no children at all. Two Pro tools get you to the photos that matter quickly.

1. The people check (AI). An administrator turns it on in Settings → People check and agrees to how it works. Then select Check now on Review images.

• It checks only images that are live on your website and still need an answer.
• Each image is downsized to 768 pixels and sent to the Ostara Ventures service, which asks our AI provider (Anthropic) one question: does this image show any person? It does not estimate anyone's age, identify anyone or describe them.
• Images with no person, like logos, buildings, equipment and empty rooms, move to No people (AI). Images with people, or any doubt, stay in Needs a decision.
• Nothing is shown or hidden because the check failed or ran out of allowance. Those images simply stay in review.
• New live images are checked every hour while it is on. Ostara Ventures keeps no images, only a fingerprint of each file and the answer.

Spot-check before you rely on it. Open No people (AI) and select Spot-check 25 at random. If any shows a person, select Put back in review on it. Administrators can also put everything back in one step.

2. Quick sort. Open Permitly → Quick sort to see the images with people one at a time, large, with four buttons:

Press Z or select Undo to take back your last answers. On a phone, the buttons stay at the bottom of the screen.

3. Tag the children. Back on Needs a decision, the images marked Has kids are waiting. Tag the children in each one, swap it for a cleared stand-in, or hide it.

Allowances. The people check has a monthly allowance by plan, enough for a first pass over a typical library (about 2,000 images on Starter, 10,000 on Organization and 50,000 on Association each month). When it runs out, checking pauses until the 1st and your images stay in review.

The consent registry

The Registry (Permitly → Registry) holds one record per child with only what you need: initials, a registration ID, program, location, program year and the parent's choices. Full child names are never stored.

Three ways records arrive

1. Staff add them with "Add a child" on the Registry.
2. Parents fill in the online form (Pro), and the record appears on its own.
3. Roster import (Pro): upload a spreadsheet (CSV). Download the sample file from the Registry to see the columns: reg_id, initials, program, location, program_year, uses, status, signed_at, guardian_name, guardian_email, left_on. Separate uses with |, for example website|social|email, or write none. Importing updates children already on file (matched by registration ID) instead of adding duplicates, and never undoes a revocation unless the file says so.

Editing a record

• Only the fields you change are saved; fixing a typo never wipes the parent's details.
• Left the program on: add the date a child leaves. Parents can still revoke for one year after that date, and the Registry shows until when.
• Changing a parent's answers from yes to no counts as a revocation, with the checklist and alert.
• Undoing a revocation needs an administrator and a written reason. It is recorded.
• Every change is kept in the record's history.

Needs matching

When a parent's form uses a registration ID already on file under a different email (for example a roster record), it is saved separately and listed under Needs matching. For each one, choose Merge (it is the same child; the newer parent answers win) or Keep separate.

Deleting a record

Use Delete for good for a family's deletion request or a duplicate. The child's photos go back to Needs review. You can also have records that ended long ago removed automatically (Settings → Data → Delete ended records after).

Go live safely

Turn protection on in small steps so nothing surprises your team or your visitors. Most organizations go from install to whole-site protection in a few days to a few weeks, depending on how many photos they have.

1. Watch on your test pagesTick Test page on a few pages, then open one with ?cg_preview=1 to see what would hide.
2. Enforce on your test pagesSettings: Protection to Enforce. Visit the test pages logged out to see what families see.
3. Work through your photo backlogTag photos on Review images. Set What to hide to Only confirmed problems while you catch up.
4. Check the whole-site pictureThe Dashboard shows how many photos would hide across your site, and on how many pages.
5. Turn on the whole siteSet Where to Whole site and confirm. The nightly check and circuit breaker keep watch.

Previewing. While logged in as staff, add ?cg_preview=1 to the end of any covered page address. Photos that would be hidden get a dashed outline, and a bar at the bottom counts them. Visitors see nothing different.

Whole site covers every page and post, plus your home page, blog and archive pages, search results, shop pages, feeds and "load more" content. Hidden photos are also left out of search engine image sitemaps, link previews and the WordPress REST API.

What visitors see. A hidden photo is replaced by your placeholder, and its caption is removed so nothing about the photo shows. While protection is on, the media picker also leaves out photos that aren't cleared, so editors can't add them to covered pages by mistake.

Your safety net

• Switch Protection back to Watch-only at any time: your site goes back to normal instantly, because nothing on it was ever changed.
• Every night Permitly rechecks every photo. If an unusual share would suddenly be hidden (more than 10% by default), it holds the change and emails you to confirm, so one wrong bulk action can't empty your pages. Photos of children whose parents said no or revoked stay hidden even then.
• If you use a page cache or CDN, Permitly clears the affected pages when a photo's status changes.

The parent consent form (Pro)

The online form lets parents give, change or take back consent themselves, and fills your registry automatically. It is a standalone form: consent is never bundled into registration, and the form says plainly that it is optional.

Add it to your site

1. Create a new page, for example "Photo consent".
2. Add the shortcode [permitly_form] and publish. The older [consent_guard_form] shortcode still works.
3. Link the page from your registration confirmation emails, parent handbook or QR code.

Shortcode options: lang="vi" opens the form in that language, and program="Summer Day Camp" preselects a program, for example [permitly_form program="Summer Day Camp" lang="es"]. The websites listed on the form and the form version are set in Settings → Consent form.

What parents see

• A short notice in plain words: what consent covers, which websites the child may appear on, and how to revoke by email.
• Their child's initials and registration ID, program and location.
• A separate Yes / No for each use: website, social media, email newsletters, printed materials, and promotional videos.
• Their name (as a typed signature), email, and an acknowledgment box.
• A language choice at the top, if you offer more than one language.

Saying no to everything is allowed and recorded as "Declined". Their child can still take part in every program either way.

What happens after they submit

Every record keeps the exact wording the parent saw, in their language, as evidence.

Spam protection works without any setup: hidden traps catch bots, and one connection can send at most 20 forms an hour.

Form languages and translation (Pro)

The consent form, its emails and the paper form come in 18 languages, and you choose which ones families see. Open Permitly → Settings → Consent form → Form languages.

Languages available: English, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Somali, Hmong, Khmer, Haitian Creole, Portuguese and French. Arabic and Farsi read right to left. Need another? Email [email protected].

Choose your languages

Tick the languages you want and click Save languages. English is always on. With two languages, families see a switch; with more, a list.

Review each translation

The built-in translations are a careful starting point, not a certified translation. A consent form is a legal notice, so have a fluent staff member, a translator or your counsel review each language:

1. Click Review wording next to a language.
2. Each line shows your English, then what families see. Fix anything that reads wrong.
3. Keep the codes exactly as they are: %1$s (your organization's name), %2$s (your revocation email), and the bold tags. A line that loses one is not saved.
4. Tick A fluent speaker has reviewed this wording, enter their name, and save.

Languages not reviewed yet are listed in a reminder at the top of the screen.

Change the English

Your counsel may want different wording. Click Edit wording next to English and change any line. Your wording is kept through plugin updates, and Restore built-in wording brings back the original at any time. Families who already signed keep the wording they saw; it is stored with their consent.

Automatic translation

When you save changed English, Permitly translates only the lines you changed into each language on your form, while you watch a progress bar. Those lines are marked Updated by AI, not reviewed until a fluent speaker checks them and ticks Reviewed.

• Only your English wording is sent for translation. No family's or child's information ever leaves your site.
• Each site has 10 automatic updates a month; the screen shows how many are left. Lines translated before cost nothing and don't count.
• Prefer to do it yourself? Untick Update translations automatically when the English changes. Changed lines stay flagged until you click Update now or edit them by hand.
• If a limit is reached or the service is unavailable, nothing breaks: your form keeps its current wording and the lines stay flagged until they're updated.

When a parent revokes consent

Parents can take consent back at any time while their child is enrolled, and for one year after the child leaves. The moment you record it, the child's photos stop showing on protected pages.

Record it

• From the online form (Pro): nothing to do. A parent who changes their answers to No confirms by email and the change applies on its own; staff are alerted right away.
• From an email: go to Permitly → Revocations → Log a revocation from an email. Find the child, enter the date the email arrived and the parent's email, then choose Stop all use or Stop only some uses. The revocation is dated from the day it arrived, not the day you entered it.
• From the Registry: edit the child's record and set Status to Revoked, or untick the uses the parent withdrew.

Then work the checklist (Pro)

Permitly opens a dated checklist for every place the child's photos were used: the website lines confirm the photos are already hidden, and there is a line for each social, email, print or video use your staff logged. Tick each item as you remove the photo there. The alert email goes to the address in Settings.

Good to know

• Hiding is automatic on your website. Posts already on social media, emails already sent and printed flyers need a person to act, which is what the checklist is for.
• A revocation can only be undone by an administrator, with a written reason.
• A child's photos stay hidden even if the photo is later re-tagged as stock or "not identifiable".
• Permitly controls what your pages show. A direct link to an image file in your uploads folder still opens that file, so remove or replace the file if a parent asks.

More Pro tools

Paper consent form

For sign-up tables and families who prefer paper. Open it from the Registry, pick a language, and print. It uses the same wording as the online form and has a QR code that opens the online form on a phone. Put [permitly_form] on a page first so the QR code has somewhere to go. Enter returned forms in the Registry; the office-use line records who entered it and when.

Evidence report

One printable page per child, opened from the child's record in the Registry: what the parent agreed to and when, the exact wording they saw, every change, each tagged photo and when it stopped showing, and the revocation checklist. Print it or save it as a PDF from your browser if a parent, auditor or lawyer asks.

One registry across several sites

For associations with branch or camp websites. In Settings → Shared registry:

1. On the main site, click Make this the main site. It keeps the registry and the parent form, and gives you a key.
2. On each branch site, enter the main site's address and the key.
3. Branch sites tag their own photos to the shared children and follow the main site's consent. They update every hour, and right away when consent changes on the main site.

Parent names and emails stay on the main site only. Make a new key stops every branch until you enter the new key there.

Cleanup tools for large libraries

• Bulk tagging: select many photos on Review images and tag them at once.
• Page by page: review every page with uncleared photos, worst first.
• Stock auto-sort: suggests stock photos and graphics from file names and photo credits.
• Staff batches: hand a set of photos to a staff member with an email, and watch progress by location.
• Embedded videos: review the YouTube and Vimeo videos on your pages and hide any that show a child without consent.
• Exports: download the registry and the activity log as spreadsheets (administrators only).

Stand-ins

On any hidden photo, click Swap photo and pick a Cleared photo to show in its place, on every page or on one page only. Nothing on the page or the file changes; the stand-in shows only while it is itself Cleared, and the original returns by itself once its consent clears. Make permanent writes the new photo into that one page for good, after saving a revision you can undo.

Settings explained

Everything below is under Permitly → Settings. Changing a rule rechecks every photo right away.

Test pages and Parents only. On any page or post, the Permitly box lets you mark it as a test page (Permitly acts there first, and it is hidden from search engines) or Parents only. Photos on a Parents only page that is password-protected or private are not hidden, since material shared only with parents is treated differently under AB 2007.

Emails Permitly sends

All emails go through your site's normal WordPress mail. If emails don't arrive, set up an SMTP or email delivery plugin.

How Permitly supports AB 2007

California AB 2007 (Business and Professions Code Section 18985) takes effect January 1, 2027. Here is how each main requirement maps to the plugin. Your counsel should confirm what applies to you.

Outside the plugin: audio files, printed materials already handed out, and personal information held in other systems need your own process. Material shared only with parents can use Parents only pages.

Updates, your license and uninstalling

• Updates arrive in WordPress like any plugin. Your settings, records and any wording you edited are kept.
• Pro license. Activate it once when you install Pro. Manage it from Permitly → Account.
• If your Pro license ends, Pro tools switch off and the parent form shows families your revocation email instead. Your records, edited wording and photo protection stay in place.
• Deactivating stops all hiding at once and puts your site back exactly as it was.
• Deleting the plugin keeps your consent records, so reinstalling picks up where you left off, unless you turned on "Delete all consent data when the plugin is deleted" in Settings.

Glossary

Troubleshooting and FAQ

The Activity screen records everything Permitly and your staff did, with dates; it is the best place to start.

FAQ

Will this break my site? No. Permitly never changes your photos or pages. Switching Protection to Watch-only, or deactivating the plugin, restores everything instantly.

Do we need parents' full names or children's names? No. Children are stored by initials and a registration ID. Parent name and email come only from the parent form.

Does it use facial recognition? No. Your staff tag who is in each photo.

Is this only for California? No. It's built to meet California AB 2007, but any organization that features kids can use it to show families their choices are respected.

Does it work with page builders and caching? Yes: it reads classic and block content, Elementor, widgets, menus and theme images, and clears common page caches when a photo's status changes.

Is our data sent anywhere? No. Consent records stay in your WordPress database. Automatic translation sends only your English form wording.

What about photos already on our site? They start as Needs review. Use the steps in "Go live safely": while you work through them, "Only confirmed problems" keeps them up, and the Dashboard shows your progress.

A family has more than one child. They fill in the form once per child, since each child can have different choices.

A family asks what we hold, or asks us to delete it. Open their child's evidence report (Pro) to show exactly what is on file. To delete it, use Delete for good on the record; their photos go back to Needs review.

Can parents fill in the form on a phone? Yes. The form is built for phones first, works in 18 languages, and reads right to left in Arabic and Farsi.

A group photo where no one can be identified? Tag it "Kids, not identifiable". It counts as Cleared unless your counsel asks you to turn that setting off.

Questions? Email [email protected]. Permitly is not legal advice; ask your counsel about your organization's needs.