Susan McLean, whose career includes a 27-year stint with Victoria Police, posted her concern about the situation on LinkedIn last Sunday night.
The post has struck a massive chord with educators, the author and internationally recognised cybersafety expert tells EducationHQ, attracting close to 30,000 impressions so far, with that number growing by the minute.
McLean says she was prompted to take action after viewing one too many alarming and ‘unethical’ photographs posted online.
“Why would I employ you in my school if you’re taking content and using it to promote yourself?
“Forget any sort of legal issues, it’s not ethical. I’m not invited into the school to create content to boost my profile.
“And that applies to any speaker,” McLean adds.
This is happening ‘across the board’ with all kinds of presenters that are invited into schools, according to the expert.
“Their argument is ‘it was on the school’s social media account’.
“I don’t care, you still don’t have permission to use it because the parents that gave permission certainly did not give you permission to take it and use it.”
Even if students’ faces are blurred or obscured this practice is simply not okay – it’s also dangerous and incredibly risky in terms of the law, McLean says.
“There are children in schools that have court orders prohibiting photography. So, if that child is photographed, you could be on the receiving end of a subpoena to the family court because you’ve broken a court order.
“[You can’t take the approach of] ‘Oh, I’ll just take the photo then I’ll work out who can’t be photographed and I’ll put black dots over their face’, because you’re still photographing the child. You can’t do that.”
McLean says she knows of several schools that “have been let down by others who should know better” and now have a clear document that is signed by every visitor, ensuring they will not take or share photographs of any students online.
Individual teachers are also posting school photos showing students on their private social media accounts, the expert says.
Here the same risks apply, and those photos have definitely been used without parent permission, she warns.
“Most parents do care. And many now are going above and beyond trying to keep their child’s digital footprint small, and they are not posting to social media pictures of their children.
“I could run almost a full-time business dealing with photo-permission issues – that’s the volume of stuff I get.”
McLean says a big isssue is the lack of staff training around student photo consent, with some schools putting it in the too-hard basket.
One secondary teacher from Melbourne told EducationHQ he knew a number of well-meaning teachers that regularly share photos of students taken at extra-curricular events on their own Facebook and Instagram accounts.
McLean is urging schools to closely examine their policies around photography and to update these as required.
She suggests using pixevety as a tool to assist here, saying she has no commercial ties to the company.
“It was developed by a dad who was sick and tired of dealing with this issue in his kid’s school.
“He then left his job and developed this photo-consent management tool that is now being used in schools right around the world…”
From a legal standpoint, schools cannot afford to run with a basic opt-in opt-out policy for parents, McLean advises.
“That’s not going to legally stand up in a court. You can’t have, simply ‘yes, no’, either, because that is called bundled consent, and bundled consent is not considered legally sound.”
Instead, informed consent must be obtained, she says.
“That means that I, Mrs McLean, give consent for my child to be photographed in the course of the school day, and the photograph can be used for the purposes of [ x, y and z].
“School publicity, social media accounts, internal school communication – you have to list them all there, and you have to give parents [a reasonable amount of] options.”
Social media tends to be the sticking point, however, the expert says.
“Social media must always be a separate category. So, a parent might give consent for photographs for internal school communication, like seesaw, for example, or the school website, but they do not want social media – and the parent has the right to say that.”
McLean says she’s seen unfortunate cases where parents have been told their child cannot attend an excursion to the zoo, for example, unless they give consent for them to be photographed.
“That becomes what is called a permission to participate. This is not photography commission, this is a condition of participation … there’s nothing to do with going to the zoo [that requires] your kid being photographed at all.”
A lack of proper training for staff is not helping either, McLean says.
“Some schools find it too hard. The people managing [photo permissions] are untrained, they’ve got no training at all.
“It’s like, ‘by the way, you’re in the PR department or you’re in admissions or you’re the classroom teacher, so you’ve got to sort all this out’, so they don’t understand…
“It should not be some untrained person being lumped with this.”
McLean’s latest book Growing Up Digital includes a chapter specifically for schools that canvasses the photo permission scene.
“And this is the thing: some schools do this very well, some do it very poorly.
“Some put it in the too-hard basket, and child safety can never be ‘too hard’.”
