82% of NSW government schools expose children's photos to AI scraping. Government policy requires it.
Original research, full dataset, and open methodology. Everything you need to verify and report this story.
The headline finding
An audit of every NSW government school found that more than 1,750 operate public Facebook Pages. Over 637,818 students attend these schools each year. Their photos are visible to anyone on the internet, indexed by search engines, and accessible to AI training systems, facial recognition crawlers, and dataset builders.
This is not individual schools making poor decisions. NSW Department of Education policy PD-2011-0418 requires school social media accounts to be public. The policy states accounts "must not restrict access or be set as 'private' or 'closed'." The policy was written in 2011, before Meta confirmed it scrapes public posts for AI training, before Clearview AI built a 50 billion photo facial recognition database from Facebook, and before AI-generated explicit images of Australian schoolchildren became a documented problem.
One administrative policy update protects every public school child in NSW. No legislation required.
Key statistics
| Finding | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| NSW government schools with public Facebook Pages | 1,780 (82%) | Original audit |
| Students attending these schools | 637,818 | Data.NSW |
| Photos scraped by Clearview AI from Facebook | 50 billion+ | Evidence page |
| Years Meta has scraped Australian public posts for AI | Since 2007 | Senate testimony |
| Australian children identified in one AI dataset | 362 | HRW report |
| Opt-out options for Australians from Meta AI training | 0 | Senate testimony |
Methodology
The audit covered 2,160 of 2,210 NSW government schools listed in the
Department of Education's public schools master dataset.
For each school, Google was searched for site:facebook.com "[School Name]".
Results were categorised by match quality. Every result was programmatically QA'd for name overlap,
P&C detection, alumni detection, and URL pattern analysis. A stratified random sample of 30 results
was manually verified against Google search results: 90% confirmed correct matches.
The conservative figure (1,780 schools, 82%) counts only school-managed Pages. Including auto-generated pages (still publicly indexed) takes the total to 2,017 schools (93%). The primary stat understates rather than overstates the finding.
No children's photos were accessed, viewed, downloaded, or scraped at any point. All data comes from Google's public search index and the NSW government's published school dataset. The audit is fully reproducible.
Full methodology, QA process, and limitations →
Data access
The full dataset (2,160 schools with Facebook presence classification, student counts, school type, and geographic data) is available to journalists on request. The source school dataset is publicly available from Data.NSW.
Email hello@algorithms.technology with "Data Request" in the subject line.
On the record
"More than 1,750 NSW government schools operate public Facebook Pages. Over 637,000 students attend these schools. The consent forms parents sign do not mention AI training, facial recognition, or deepfakes. The NSW Department of Education policy that governs school social media was written in 2011, before any of these risks existed. Schools are following the system as designed. The system needs updating."
Ben Fitzpatrick, parent at a NSW public school and author of algorithms.technology
Available for interview. For quotes, background briefings, or additional data, email hello@algorithms.technology with "Media" in the subject line.
Key pages
- The Audit: Full findings, data tables, geographic breakdown, methodology
- The System: Legal framework, PD-2011-0418, protection levels
- AI Training: Meta's Senate testimony on scraping public posts
- Facial Recognition: Clearview AI, 50B+ photos, OAIC breach finding
- Deepfakes: Australian school incidents
- Training Datasets: HRW/LAION-5B, 362 Australian children
- About: Who I am, principles, independence, corrections policy
Contact
Ben Fitzpatrick
Parent at a NSW public school
hello@algorithms.technology
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