Our children's photos are training AI
We banned children from social media. Schools are still publishing their photos on it. Those photos are scraped to train AI, harvested for facial recognition databases, and turned into explicit deepfakes of children that are shared publicly online. None of us consented to this. All of it is confirmed.
Every NSW government school, audited. Here's what the data shows.
A search for a Facebook presence associated with every NSW government school found that more than 1,750 operate public Facebook Pages. Visible to anyone on the internet. Indexed by search engines. Accessible to AI scrapers and facial recognition systems. Over 637,000 students attend these schools.
The consent forms parents sign don't mention AI training, facial recognition, or deepfakes. The NSW policy governing school social media was written in 2011. Before any of these risks existed. The pattern is consistent across the state: 83% of metro schools, 81% of regional schools, 82% of outer regional schools. This is not individual decisions. It is what the system produces.
Three changes that protect children right now
NSW must update its school social media policy
NSW Department of Education policy PD-2011-0418 requires every public school's Facebook account to be public. The policy states accounts "must not restrict access or be set as 'private' or 'closed'." This means children's photos are visible to anyone on the internet, by design.
The policy was written before Meta confirmed under oath that it scrapes every public post for AI training. Before Clearview AI built a 50 billion photo facial recognition database from Facebook. Before AI-generated explicit images of Australian schoolgirls were created from their publicly accessible photos.
One administrative policy update, no legislation required, protects every public school child in NSW. Update PD-2011-0418 to allow or require private settings. Update the Permission to Publish form to disclose AI risks and offer granular consent. Issue guidance to schools on the current threat landscape.
P&Cs recommend their schools act now
P&C associations can't direct schools, but they can make formal recommendations. Any P&C can pass a motion recommending their school move to a private Facebook Group and remove children's photos from public access. It's free, immediate, and within the P&C's role.
Australia closes the gaps in children's protections
The Children's Online Privacy Code is due December 2026. The Privacy Act is being reformed. These need to explicitly address children's images in AI training datasets and establish that public availability does not equal consent to AI training.
Whatever brought you here, there's something for you
I'm not sure this is real
Straight answers to honest questions. Common doubts, addressed with evidence.
I want to act at my school
Motion template, step-by-step process, and how to handle every objection you'll hear in the room.
I need to explain this to someone
The full story in one page. Sourced, shareable, written so anyone can understand it.
Show me the evidence
Senate testimony, Human Rights Watch reports, regulatory findings. Every claim sourced. Judge for yourself.
What the evidence shows
Five confirmed threats to children from public school Facebook Pages. None of this is theoretical. All of it is documented, sourced, and verifiable.
AI Training
Meta confirmed under oath to the Australian Senate that it scrapes every public post since 2007 to train AI. Children's photos are included. Australians have no opt-out.
Facial Recognition
Clearview AI scraped 50 billion+ photos from Facebook. The Australian Information Commissioner found it breached the Privacy Act. The database grew after the order to delete.
Deepfakes
AI-generated explicit images of 50+ schoolgirls at a Melbourne school. Created from their social media photos. Deepfake reports to the eSafety Commissioner are doubling year on year.
Training Datasets
Human Rights Watch found 362 identifiable Australian children in a single AI dataset, from less than 0.0001% of the data. Some photos came from school uploads.
No Consent
The NSW consent form is binary: all public publishing or nothing. It makes no mention of AI training, facial recognition, or deepfakes. It was written before any of this existed.
We banned children from social media. We're still publishing their photos on it.
In December 2025, Australia's Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act took effect. Platforms must prevent under-16s from holding accounts. 4.7 million accounts were removed. As a country, we decided social media is not safe for children.
Schools are still posting identifiable photos of those same children on those same platforms. Every week. On pages that are public by policy. Accessible to anyone on the internet. Scraped by the systems we just decided children need protection from.
The law protects children from being on social media. Nothing yet protects them from being published on it.
"Meta has just decided that you will scrape all of the photos and all of the text from every public post on Instagram or Facebook that Australians have shared since 2007, unless there was a conscious decision to set them on private." Senator David Shoebridge, Australian Senate Select Committee on Adopting AI, September 2024
Stay informed. Help this spread.
Schools are starting to act. Regulation is moving. Sign up to follow the investigation and get notified when new evidence or tools are published.
Photos already scraped can't be unscraped. But we can stop it getting worse.
Every school that moves to a private Group is one less source of publicly accessible children's photos. Every P&C that passes a motion builds the case for policy change. Every parent who shares this evidence makes it harder to ignore.