Dangers of putting pupils’ images on school websites | Letters
TL;DR
Schools can compromise children’s privacy, exposing them to potential identity fraud, harassment and AI exploitation, says Dr Claire Bessant It was concerning, but sadly unsurprising, to read a Guardian article reporting that UK schools are being blackmailed with AI-generated child sexual abuse images created from photos shared on school websites and social media pages (UK schools should remove pupils’ online photos as AI blackmail threat grows, say experts, 8 May). Lord Russell, in the 2024 debates on the data (use and access) bill, highlighted the potential for AI to be used to scrape images from school websites and social media.
Nauti's Take
An urgent wake-up call: UK schools being blackmailed with AI-generated abuse images shows how real the danger is when kids' photos sit on public sites. The upside: pressure is building for clearer rules — schools, parents and authorities must take images offline and adopt privacy by default.
The progress is that the problem finally lands on senior desks. The limit: photos already inside AI training sets are almost impossible to recall.
Sources