What the Child Safe Standards are
In Victoria, the Child Safe Standards are eleven standards that organisations working with children must meet. Since 1 July 2022 they have applied to Victorian schools through Ministerial Order 1359, and the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority regulates them for schools. Other states and territories have their own child safe frameworks, most of them aligned with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, so check the rules your own regulator applies.
The standards do not ban schools from publishing photos or video of students. What they ask is that child safety is built into how a school operates, including the decisions a marketing team makes every week.
Where school video fits
Several standards touch publishing directly. Standard 9 asks that physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children to be harmed. A school website, a newsletter and a social media account are all part of that online environment. Standard 11 asks that policies and procedures document how the school is safe for children, which means your media consent process should be written down and followed, not held in one person's memory.
The standards on involving families and on empowering children to take part in decisions matter too. A family that has said no to social media, or a senior student who has asked not to appear, should see that answer respected every time, not only when someone happens to remember.
The privacy layer: the Privacy Act 1988 and the APPs
For schools covered by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), a photo or video of an identifiable student is personal information. The Australian Privacy Principles set rules for collecting it, using it and disclosing it, including using it only for the purpose it was collected for unless an exception applies. Publishing a student in a social media post when the family agreed only to the newsletter is the kind of gap that causes complaints.
Face recognition raises the stakes. Biometric templates are sensitive information under the Act, and the Australian Privacy Principles generally require consent before sensitive information is collected. Media consent, the permission to appear in a newsletter or a post, does not stand in for consent to biometric processing. If a tool matches faces, the register needs a separate answer for that.
A practical process for your team
- Keep one register. One current list of students and their consent answers, not a spreadsheet on the shared drive and another in the office.
- Record consent by purpose. Newsletter, website and social media are different uses, and a family can say yes to one and no to another.
- Check every face, not only the ones you recognise. A student at the edge of a wide shot is still identifiable.
- Act on withdrawals quickly. When a family changes its answer, every later edit and publication should follow the new answer.
- Keep a record of each decision. Who appeared, what they were cleared for, which version of the register you checked against, and who approved the publication.
- Keep footage on school systems. Know where your raw footage lives and who can reach it.
Where EveryFrame fits
EveryFrame matches the faces in your footage against the consent register you import, judges each student per publication purpose, and obscures anyone who is not cleared, so the clip can still go out. Unmatched faces are flagged rather than treated as cleared, and a whole video export is held until a person has dealt with them. When the whole video exports, EveryFrame offers a record naming who was matched and what they were cleared for, for staff to review and sign. It runs on your school's own computers and never sends footage, images or student data to us. See how EveryFrame works, or read our guides on keeping a media consent register and on publishing video when a student has no consent.
Questions marketing teams ask
Do the Child Safe Standards stop schools publishing photos of students?
No. The Victorian Child Safe Standards do not ban publishing images of students. They ask that online environments promote safety and wellbeing, and that a school's policies document how it keeps children safe. Publishing should follow a written process that respects each family's consent.
Do the Victorian Child Safe Standards apply to schools in other states?
The Victorian standards apply to organisations in Victoria. Other states and territories have their own child safe frameworks, many aligned with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. Check the requirements of the regulator in your state or territory.
Is media consent enough if we use face recognition?
No. Under the Privacy Act 1988, biometric templates are sensitive information, and collecting sensitive information generally requires consent. Media consent covers appearing in a publication, not biometric processing, so a register should hold a separate answer for face recognition.
What should a school keep as a record of a publishing decision?
A useful record names who appeared, what each student was cleared for, which version of the consent register was checked, and who approved the publication. That lets the school show how a decision was made rather than only asserting it.
EveryFrame is recruiting schools for its Term 4 2026 pilot. Register your school's interest, or start with the EveryFrame home page.
This guide is general information about Australian law as at October 2026. It is not legal advice.