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More than half of primary schools in England post pictures of pupils on social media platforms, amid concern over the rise of AI-generated deepfake content.

Teacher Tapp polling data, commissioned by 91����, reveals that most schools share images of children on public platforms - but over a quarter of primaries and one in five secondaries plan to change their policies in the near future.

The findings come after warnings that images of children could be and used to create sexual abuse material, also leaving schools vulnerable to blackmail.

They also follow the government announcing support for a social media ban for under-16s, and after the urging parents not to post images of their children online.

Secondaries more likely to share pictures

asked more than 2,100 senior leaders about their school’s policies on image sharing on various public platforms. Over half of primary respondents indicated that their school used images of pupils on social media accounts with parental permission; 85 per cent shared photos on the school’s website.

Among secondary leaders, almost nine in 10 shared images of students on the school website and over two-thirds had pictures on public social media accounts.

Leaders were also asked whether they had plans to change their policies this year, with the majority indicating that they did not.

Last week, two days after the survey was completed, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Internet Watch Federation issued that cautions against sharing images of their children, amid concerns that AI technology is making it easier to create images of child sexual abuse.

The findings also come after the government announced last month that it would support a social media ban for under-16s - a move cautiously welcomed by school leaders.

Thomas Michael, a safeguarding lead at a school in the West Midlands, said it is “hypocritical” to advise pupils to stay off social media because it is dangerous, while at the same time continuing to post images of pupils on online platforms.

Mr Michael told 91����: “There have been schools in the country that have been blackmailed because [people] have taken images of students off the website and off social media, created child sexual abuse material out of it, and have then blackmailed the school.”

The Internet Watch Foundation, which monitors online child sexual abuse material, said in May that a blackmail attempt was made on a UK secondary school after criminals scraped photos of students from its website and social media accounts and used AI to digitally alter the pictures.

Mr Michael added: “Also, there’s an issue of consent. When Year 7s join the school, parents tick a box to consent to photos, but the kid has never consented - so six or seven years later, when they’re teenagers and the photo is being plastered on social media, they might not want that, because it’s there forever.”

If under-16s in schools are prevented from using social media under a planned ban for under-16s, they will not be able to personally consent to having their images shared online.

Mr Michael believes schools should no longer post images of children on social media or websites, and described pupils’ participation in TikTok videos on school accounts as “mindblowing”.

‘Completely reckless’ to post pupil images online

This stance is shared by Jen Persson, director of campaign group , who told 91���� it is “completely reckless” for schools to post images of pupils online.

She said: “Once the NCA has warned you not to post faces online, it stops being routine and starts looking like negligence to leave them up.

“Safeguarding doesn’t stop at the school gate; if you’d never hand a stranger a child’s photo in person, don’t hand them all in one go to the whole internet - and for life.”

Ms Persson said that ignoring safety warnings by leaving pupils’ images online “isn’t a marketing decision any more, it’s a safeguarding failure”.

She added: “If a pupil is harmed by an image the school published, no one will ask whether the account was public or private - they’ll ask why it was posted at all.”

In an 18 May letter to education secretary Bridget Phillipson, Baroness Harman - the UK special envoy for women and girls - and education unions, Ms Persson called for a ban on the publication of pupils’ facial and body images in state education, and for statutory guidance applying to all ages to be issued in educational settings.

Manny Botwe, headteacher of Tytherington School in Macclesfield, said his secondary school shares images of students online with parental permission, but does not “directly attribute pictures to particular names” and removes them over time to ensure they are not visible “forever”.

Mr Botwe listed reasons for sharing images - including parental engagement and a sense of pride among students - but also said clear guidance from the Department for Education would be welcome, as long as it is “proportionate”.

He added that “we can think of worst-case scenarios - but actually in the overwhelming majority of the cases, we don’t find that images are misused if appropriate security settings are used”.

Mr Botwe said he understood schools that decided to heavily restrict image-sharing online, but added that it was for individual settings to decide.

He described the safe sharing of images as “a big part in terms of telling the story of the school, but also in getting parents to engage with the school and understand what’s going on”.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the , said: “Schools use imagery to celebrate the work and achievements of their children, staff and families, and it is a great shame that something so positive is abused in such a disgusting manner.

“Sadly, however, we are aware of an emerging threat whereby images of children are altered by criminals and paedophiles using AI tools to create sexual images.”

Mr Di’Iasio stressed that it is “clearly an evolving issue”, which schools would be considering “carefully”, and that ASCL had shared with members.

Charlotte Melhuish, partner at law firm Stone King, told 91���� that further consideration of image-sharing by schools was warranted, but said that an outright ban would be “disproportionate”.

She said schools are correct to celebrate pupils’ achievements, and warned the issue is “less whether images should ever be used, but whether schools have thought carefully about purpose, proportionality, identifiability and control”.

Ms Melhuish said: “The rise of images being manipulated, however, should serve as a reminder to schools to review their policies, and any content already published, and ask whether all appropriate steps have been taken to minimise safeguarding risk and comply with data protection law. For instance, could they achieve the same by using images where children are not as easily identifiable?”

The Department for Education has been approached for comment.

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