How to post photos of children on social media safely.

Only if it says so. The OAIC's guidance on posting photos puts it directly: if you use the picture for something you did not tell the person about, you will probably need their consent, unless they would reasonably expect you to use it that way. A form ticked for documenting a child's learning is not a form that covers marketing the service on a public page. Most enrolment packs still have one blanket tick, which is why we give away a form with a separate decision per use.

Probably yes, and this catches people out. The OAIC's small business page lists who is covered regardless of turnover, and a health service provider is first on that list. Its separate page on what a health service provider is says the Act covers you even if you are a small business and even if health is not your main activity, and its list of examples ends with "a private school or a childcare centre". Whether that is you turns on whether you provide a health service and hold health information, which most services do the moment they hold an allergy plan or an incident record. Both pages are linked in the method section above. Check them, then check with your own adviser rather than with us.

First work out what they said no to, because most families who decline a public page are fine with the parent app, and then it is not a problem at all. If they declined the channel you are about to use, the honest answers are a different photo or cropping them out, not blurring them. A blurred child is still recognisably their child in your post, and the family will see it that way. Blurring is the right tool for a child caught incidentally in the background, which is a different situation.

Not in a centre-based service, in general. ACECQA's summary of the rules that started on 27 February 2026 is that personal devices cannot be used or be in a person's possession while working directly with children, covering staff, volunteers and students, with limited exceptions and the possibility of a written authorisation from the approved provider. Service-supplied devices can be used, including for photographs. Read ACECQA's page and your own policy rather than taking a software company's word for it. Schools are not covered by this.

Yes, and you should ask rather than assume, including for the meet the team page. Much of what eSafety received between January and March 2026 targeted staff rather than students: headshots turned into fake videos, teacher rating accounts, memes about principals and teachers. Many of those reports had to go through the adult scheme, where the threshold is higher and removal is harder. eSafety tells schools to treat abuse aimed at staff as a wellbeing and workplace matter, which means a staff photo is a consent conversation, not a default.

Longer than most people expect. A statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy commenced on 10 June 2025, and the OAIC notes it reaches entities that are not covered by the Privacy Act itself. Where the person was under 18 when it happened, proceedings must start before their twenty-first birthday. So a photo of a three year old carries a window that stays open for eighteen years. Acting with consent is a defence, which is the practical reason to write down what was agreed at the time rather than reconstructing it later. The OAIC page is linked above and says to get independent legal advice, which we would echo.

Collect the evidence before you report or block anything, because blocking can lose you the account. eSafety's advisory lists what to keep: screenshots or screen recordings, the account name and handle, the platform and the URL, dates and times, captions, comments and direct messages, and any response from the platform. Keep access to it narrow, since sharing it internally re-exposes the person it targets. Never save or forward nude or sexual images of anyone under 18. Then report to the platform, and to eSafety. Expect the content to reappear through screenshots or a new account, and plan for that rather than treating one removal as the end.

Some services have decided to, and it is a defensible choice. eSafety notes that posting fewer images, or none, reduces the risk without removing it, because images may still be available from other public sources. The cost is real too: a page that goes quiet reads as a service that has closed, and families choosing a centre look at that page first. The middle path most services land on is to keep posting, but to post from the centre's device, check the channel against what each family agreed to, take the names and the room numbers out of the frame and the caption, and use photos where the children are not the identifiable subject. That is the whole of this page in one sentence.