Two New Zealand primary schools have stopped posting photos and videos of their pupils on Facebook, saying artificial intelligence has made it too easy for children’s images to be copied, altered and reused in places families would never approve of.
Takaro School in Palmerston North and Pāpāmoa Primary School in the Bay of Plenty told RNZ’s Nine to Noon on Wednesday 16 September that the change was driven by worries about children’s privacy and the lack of control schools and parents have once a picture is online.
Takaro principal Josie Woon said her concern began about a year ago at a Google-hosted course on AI, where participants practised manipulating images and video.
“We could make a science experiment look like a bomb was going off on our field or a rocket ship landing and things like that,” she said.
That exercise made her think about the school’s own digital footprint. Woon said the senior leadership team had spent the last two terms weighing up the safety of the images the school already had online.
“I think with the way AI has boomed, we haven’t been able to keep up with it… There’s so much more that is happening with it that we’re not ready for, and I want us to be in a space where we’re ahead of the game – and that means we protect our children.”
She told RNZ it took only seconds to screenshot a photo or screen record a video from a school Facebook page, and that faces could be superimposed to make it look as if children were somewhere they had never been.
Woon also raised the question of consent. Parents sign forms allowing their children’s photos to be published, but the children themselves have no say in a record that could follow them for life.
“Parents give permission for our children’s images to go up, but it’s a lifelong digital footprint that the children haven’t given consent for,” she said.
She said the school’s past posts had been viewed all over the world, and the number of views suggested it was more than just families checking in.
Takaro will now share pupil photos and video only through the Hero app, a school communication platform that is open to parents and whānau (extended family) rather than the public. Its Facebook page will still carry event notices and reminders.
At Pāpāmoa Primary, principal Matt Simeon said his school had not had any reported misuse of its images. But he said another school nearby had.
“They posted a celebration of their kapa haka group, and that video was then taken off their site and used on other kind of Facebook sites that didn’t reflect the values of the school,” he said, referring to the school’s Māori performing arts group.
Simeon said the video was used for propaganda, and that neither Facebook, Netsafe nor the police could do anything about it.
“It just got me thinking and going, ah, look, the world’s changed,” he said. “A couple of strokes of the keyboard and you’ve got something that’s completely not what you were planning to share.”
He took a proposal to his board, which he said approved it very quickly. The idea reached him, somewhat ironically, through a closed Facebook group for principals, where a colleague shared her school’s experience.
Woon said she had been following schools overseas that made the same move earlier, for the same reasons. It is a notable shift in New Zealand, where school Facebook pages have for years been the main place parents see sports days, prizegivings and cultural performances.
How quickly the technology has moved is part of the concern. In the space of about five years, AI tools have gone from struggling to produce a recognisable face to making video that can easily fool the untrained eye, and RNZ has reported on AI-generated pages posing as New Zealand news spreading across Facebook.
Schools are not left without guidance. In May 2025 the Office of the Privacy Commissioner released photography and filming guidance covering how images of children should be collected, shared, kept and deleted, with a section aimed at the education sector.
Announcing it, Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster said sharing images helped record children’s achievements and special moments, “But it’s also important people are aware of the risks associated with the collection, use and sharing of these images and do what’s necessary to protect their privacy and keep them safe from harm.”
The guidance points out that a single photo can reveal far more than it seems, including a child’s school, approximate age and where they might live. It also encourages organisations to seek informed consent and make sure children and families understand how images will be used.
The schools’ decision comes as the Government tightens its approach to children and technology more broadly. Students’ use of mobile phones in schools was banned in 2024.
On 24 August this year Education Minister Erica Stanford introduced the Online Safety (Minimum Age and Child Safety Risk Assessment) Bill, which would require platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook to take reasonable steps to stop under-16s holding accounts. The Spinoff reported that platforms could face penalties of up to 10 percent of global revenue, and that ACT and New Zealand First had said they would not support it, leaving National needing Labour’s backing.
That bill targets children’s own accounts. The Takaro and Pāpāmoa decisions deal with a different risk, which is what happens to children’s faces when adults post them publicly, often with the best of intentions.
For parents, the practical question is what their own child’s school does with the photos it takes, and what they agreed to on the consent form. The Privacy Commissioner’s guidance is a useful starting point for anyone who wants to raise it with their school.
Should schools stop putting children’s photos on public Facebook pages, or does it take away something families value? Tell us what your school does in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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