Do you let your children appear in photos on the school website, etc?

[wishicouldhibernate]

I’m just wondering idly because I’ve noticed an increasing number of emojis covering children’s faces in every school year: by that I mean the odd one or two in years 5 and 6 to at least half the class being emoji-d out in reception.

But I have also noticed we get weekly photos sent to our class ‘stream’ on the school app which aren’t emoji-d so I guess anyone could theoretically put them on social media.

Nope and I won’t be changing my mind even though DS7 wants me too! DS is adopted with tricky bio family so not worth the risk

Some schools are now using avatars for staff and governor photos and AI images or avatars for class/ children photos.
It’s to prevent deep fakes and image manipulation. This is being advised on some safeguarding courses.

No, we don’t have ours shared on social media, or internal school media.

I always shared my DC’s photos and thought people were being overly precious when they didn’t but now we’re starting to hear about deep fake photos and videos I think I probably got it wrong.

Im in charge of our school social media and we only do backs of heads/ hands etc in pictures since last year. This was in consultation with the parents who liked getting updates but also felt strongly about their childs face being on show. It's also easier for teachers not to leave children out of photos and emojis can be removed with some software.

That is understandable!

Yes. My dc is on the actual website too. What is anyone going to do with their school photos?

I keep reading stuff about paedophiles taking their images for abusive purposes but I have to admit the chances of that happening seem very small.

My son’s secondary have started making the photos into cartoon versions. Although I’m not sure if they’re running them through AI to do this which I wouldn’t think all parents would be happy about.

No because from what I could see the staff didn't worry too much about whether the photos they used on the website were remotely flattering 😅 loads of kids looking vacant with their mouth hanging open - I don't think dc need to have any chsnce of that resurfacing 20 years later.

I did allow them to be in the learning journal type photos and the professional photos. If someone put one of those on social media so be it.

quite, I'd much prefer my child to be on the website than uploaded to AI!

Deep fakes exist and AI manipulation. Many safeguarding courses are recommending no photos of children's faces - only photos taken from being /above. I've removed all permissions and written to the school stating my concerns.

Mine are older now but I used to be fine with it and had them on my social media etc...but with the increasing use of Ai, deep fakes etc... and schools being held to random with imagines taken from their social media I now no longer allow it and have been slowly removing images from Facebook etc... when I get my daily memories.

AI scrapes the web. If they are on the internet, they are part of AI training data.

Emojis won’t stop this. It’s really easy to remove an emoji using AI, we are not allowed to do this at my school. If a parent doesn’t want their child in photos we just don’t take photos with them in.

I did. But would think twice about it now due to the rapid development of AI in recent years.

I don’t allow it. My kids aren’t on any social media photographs at all. I was a foster carer for a long time and so it’s just a natural follow on to not allow it for my own children. There is no reason for the school to be putting photos up of the kids on Facebook or instagram. The risks of deep fakes and pedophile use are not huge but they do exist. And that is good enough for me to just say no.

my daughter is adopted and due to risk of birth family tracing her putting us both at risk I do not allow any images of her to be posted or shared, including on class seesaw app in case another parent screenshots and shares on SM.