Schools are competing with each other publicly on social media and children are paying the price. Teachers are compelled to photograph children to share daily school activities on social media. While it may be  nice for parents to see pictures of their children at school it puts children at risk and sends the wrong message about over-sharing and children's digital rights. 

It doesn't matter that parents are asked to provide consent. Constantly photographing the children at school normalises a vacuous culture of publicly sharing everything online and sets a poor example to children and their families of digital habits.

Asking for parental consent is not enough when it comes to teaching children about their digital rights. Primary school children are not old enough to legally use social media or fully understand the implications of having their images shared. It is of no benefit to children and exposes them to risks such as AI deepfake nudes, and scams such as sextortion, let alone future threats we cant yet imagine. 

If they have to take and share images of children schools should use alternative, secure, closed networks, at no cost to families. Local authorities should provide this service at no cost or else simply stop the practice. 

Lets end this now so that kids can focus on learning and living in the moment rather than living their lives through social media at such a young age. 

We call on the government to act to stop schools photographing and sharing images of children publicly on social media.