EARWIG CHILD PROTECTION POLICY

Child protection is high on the agenda of most schools, particularly pre-school and primary and any system which involves the use of photographs or video must provide adequate safeguards to ensure that these images are not misused.

The key fact to understand with regard to the Earwig platform is that it is a CLOSED SYSTEM. This means that no-one can access any of the site content unless they are Earwig Account Holders and have a login and password provided by a school.

Nothing is accessible by the general public. From the moment a photo or a video is taken it remains within the system. The only people who may be Earwig Account Holders are...

• School staff, including teachers and assistants, who have been Earwig logins by the School Administrator.
• Earwig staff, who are carefully screened.
• Ofsted inspectors and other authorities specifically authorised by School Administrator.
• Parents who are currently registered with the school and who have been sent an invitation by the School Administrator.

Even then, Earwig Account Holders can only access images related to their children or children that they teach.

Parents are entitled to opt their children out of the Earwig process at any time, in which case their children’s images will not be tagged or identified in any way. Parents are also advised that any images that they buy from the website should not be displayed on the internet without some consideration of child security issues.

The only images which leave the Earwig closed user group are those that are selected for the school blog (or magazine). In these cases the decision to move the images into the public arena is taken by the school staff, with due regard to child protection issues, in the same way as any other school magazine photos would be.