School photos consent: refusing public website but child excluded from events

[Rachirooo]

I'm interested to hear from primary school parents who don't post pics of their children in school uniform on their own social media, but do allow the school to post pics of them on their website and social media?

I'd love to see what my child has been up to at school. These pics used to be in a private section of the school website that we had to log in to. I didn't mind that and loved seeing the pics. The school have now removed this section of the website so any stranger can view pics of the kids. Now it feels like the kids are just being used for free advertising rather than informing us of what they're up to in class so I've removed consent.

They also post frequently with the days of the events so it's really easy for a predator to work out the school timetable, when they go to forest school etc. I think it's a safeguarding issue.

My child is now excluded from any event where pics might be taken and he gets upset, as do I, that I don't get to see what he's up to at school. He definitely feels singled out and I feel like I'm going overboard. I know that's my doing by removing consent but it does seem unfair when the website used to work so well.

He's going to be in a choir competition soon and I won't get to see anything.

Maybe how our school website used to work is unusual and most parents don't get to see what their primary age kids are doing at school?

Do any other schools break down the consent. Eg, I don't consent to website/socials/newspapers but I consent to pics up on the wall in school etc.

I’m surprised some people in here don’t understand why parents would want to block social media and online content of their children. Beyond potential safety/safeguarding risks, children don’t have the ability to consent to a social media presence and parents should not make decisions about creating such a presence as it infringes on the children’s bodily and general autonomy. You lose/relinquish property/ownership rights (and for that matter, any type of control) over anything you upload/post online or to a social media platform. Children born into the social media/digital age should be able to decide as adults to what extent they want their information to be exposed to others.

I've done a safeguarding course for a group I volunteer with lately, and one of the pieces of guidance given was to make sure that partents are informing their children that they are not supposed to have their photo taken, and understand what that means. This then makes it easier for organisaitons to setup photos in such a way that kids can be easily cropped out. Smily faces/blue circles are actually not a recommedned way of dealing with this, as children can still be identified.
There was a general discussion that younger kids would struggle with this, but the safeguarding trainer was saying its best they know early, and that their parent explain it to them in a way they can understand it best

Thank you because I was starting to feel over dramatic.

I have my own reasons, but I wouldn't post my son in his school uniform on my own socials, so why would I allow a school to do that.

But then… what’s the issue? Because op appears to be saying she does want photos of her child taken, she does want them to be uploaded to social media but she wants it to be private.

end result is, her child’s image is still on and now copyright owned by the social media company.

so the issue isn’t him not being able to consent. OP has already made the decision she wants to override his lack of ability to consent.

i agree with the others OP, I don’t understand what threat your perceive. A predator can easily access millions of CSA images on the internet in seconds, why would they want a picture of a boy in his school uniform?

event exclusion is to be expected. For example, if your child doesn’t have permission to be photographed they won’t be able to partake in the school concert because parents will be taking photos

We get updates and photos via an app of things they are doing in school.
On the socials you have to consent. There are looked after children in the school so they are very careful. But I gave consent as have no particular concerns.

No-one is excluded from activities but they are excluded from the photos, I see nothing wrong with that.

OP, my school has private platforms for photos, which I've consented to, and then a public Facebook page/ social media presence which I haven't. I follow the Facebook page for event updates, and from what I can see they take separate photos 'for the socials' than they do for the private groups. No heads turned into emojis. It's only ever come up once with DD, and never been an issue or something that makes her feel excluded.

Genuine question (I don't have small children so this is completely alien to me) but why are schools taking so many photos of kids each day and uploading them online?! Is it to promote the school to newcomers or for the parents benefit?

I take it that if you have social media profiles and they are all public?

I wouldn't have a public profile, so why would I do that to my own child? Do you think most people are strange for having private social media?

Well they're allowing him to take part in a comp this week?

This is how it used to be at our school which was great.

Yep I think so. The photos they're uploading to the website and socials now used to be in a private secure part of the website. I liked that as I could see what he was doing at school. We don't get many updates otherwise.

Making them public means they're more like an advertisement for the school.

They're so specific which I don't like at all. Eg. Yr X at Forest school on Tuesday.

Lots of schools don't share as many pics as mine does.

Public/ private profiles on social media companies don’t have longevity. Meta or Google can change the terms whenever they like, so no I don’t any trust in them.

but my point was, you’re not concerned about consent, just access

I guess every person who doesn't agree with me has a public social media profile?

I really wanted to understand how consent works in other schools and if they have secure private spaces where you can view pics of your child, but it's become a debate on consent. It was my own choice to not consent and I won't change that unless they change how they provide the images.

Thank you :)

I’m on my work website, which is pretty much the same. I don’t actually know if we can refuse; I guess we could but I don’t think anyone actually has.

I have a private profile, but I still don't post pics of my child in uniform on it. I wouldn't post if I'm going on holiday either. I'm sensible with it.

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean by "but my point was, you’re not concerned about consent, just access"

They're not posting without consent which is fine.

I wanted to understand how other schools dealt with photography and consent. Are there any schools who post to a private platform (as our school used to do). Is consent broken down?

I wasn't trying to start a debate on whether I'd done the right thing to remove consent - that was my own choice and I'm fine with it if they're going to post as they are. If I don't allow my child's image to be used for advertising, I don't get to see anything.

I don't think it's reasonable to want photos but for limited people to have access. I think you have to choose between him being in photos and no photos. Our school don't publish and photos of children and I don't feel that i've missed out at all.

I think you’re missing or misunderstanding the flow of the thread that my post was responding to. We weren’t talking about about your signature on a form consent, we were taking about the concept of keeping children off social media (private or public) because they themselves don’t have the ability to consent to it:

“Beyond potential safety/safeguarding risks, children don’t have the ability to consent to a social media presence and parents should not make decisions about creating such a presence as it infringes on the children’s bodily and general autonomy”

Yeah, I totally get it and it’s weird the school doesn’t cooperate (also weird they are so active online and in non-protected/public social media, they should be concerned about their UK GDPR obligations, photos that clearly identify a living individual constitute personal data for purposes of that legislation and hence they’ll have obligations derived from that). My DS goes to nursery (so guess a bit different) and I declined consent to publish his pictures in social media because I think it’s the sensible thing to do, but they still take pictures of him solo and with his friends and share them either via WhatsApp (solo pictures just to me and group pictures in the wider parent group) or through a private Google Photos Album only parents have access to (which I have no problem with). Would assume it wouldn’t be that hard for the school to take pictures of the children without excluding those who don’t want to be in social media and set up a private Google Photos to use, rather than their public website. Maybe something you can suggest to the school (although they don’t sound very cooperative)?

I don’t allow my kids faces on SM have to be blurred out I’ve makde it explicitly clear to never make my children feel like they are being singled out or treated differently because I don’t want them on the internet which let’s face it, is a vile place for the most part - I’ll hit the roof.

First up, the sharing of photos and the pressure to send regular pics of every single child especially when on residential trips is a mad amount of extra faff for teachers.

At our school photos are taken for evidence and used internally to show that the children have done x, y, z.

In the main, children who don't have permission for their photos to be shared on social media or the newsletter are children who are in care, fostered, adopted, or who are experiencing family challenges, have experienced DV, that kind of thing.

Yes, photos are also used to share more widely what the school's been up to, demonstrating best practice, innovative curriculum approaches etc so doesn't always include a child's face but their hand doing a task. This stuff is important e.g. our school has income from training other schools so being able to platform what we're good at helps the budget which helps the children.

You are right that there are safeguarding concerns if it's easy for any member of the public to work out a child's timetable or location, and using names isn't great either, it's best if it's a generic year group thing.

There are so many apps and comms routes these days to share photos and I know our primary stepped back from doing this directly to parents so much as it became such a chore and it was also more about the parent's wants rather than actually having any impact on the child's learning.

There are ways of anonymising children who haven't got permission but it does save valuable time not to include them in the photo in the first place. In my work it's the same, if we're doing photos at a conference and there's someone who doesn't want to be included, we have to try and work around that from the start rather than editing after.

It's an ever evolving landscape and it's fine to ask the school about it - it needs to be in line with their safeguarding policies. Your child shouldn't be excluded from activities but at the end of a busy and exhausting day, the photo sharing responsibilities are another layer for overworked teachers.

Sorry but this post does make you sound pushy and ridiculous.

I disagree.
If schools want to plaster photos of children all over public social domains then they should be required to do whatever it takes to uphold the parents wishes without excluding them altogether.

DCs primary school use a social media platform to update parents. They ask parents to register with said platform but I am not into using SM so I just look at the page to see what's happening week to week (if I remember!). I see a few children have emoji images over their faces to disguise their face for confidentiality reasons. Could your school take this approach?

It's fair enough that you don't want your child on the internet so they dont take photos of her but realistically the time to blurr out faces and go through lists is ridiculous. Staff have to be realistic and so do parents. " Anyone on the list allowing photos can do this". Sone. So much easier. It's a school not a paranoid parent agency. Realistically you can't have it all ways there simply isn't time in a school day to monitor all this in the modern world. Teachers are top busy teaching , budgets dont allow for staff to sit there all day blurring out and editing photos

I volunteer in a children's educational facility and this is a complete PITA. There are parents who don't want their DC in photos, so we have to ask them to step aside, which is often upsetting for the child. The parent then complains child is upset and says they shouldn't be excluded . Some want the picture pixilated but no emoji, some want a specific emoji and not any one or pixilated. I've spent so much time on this, teachers really have way too much to do.
If you don't want your child included in photography you need to make him aware that is your decision and that is why he is being asked to stand aside. You cannot constantly angle photography where one child is out of view.

I'm also not registering on these sites just to put a ❤️ on every post to please the school. Looking at the posts then chatting with my two primary aged DC is more constructive in my view rather than putting a ❤️ on every post.