What a media consent register is for
A media consent register records, for each student, what the family (or the student) has agreed to. Its job is to answer one question quickly and correctly: can this student appear in this publication? Under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, a school covered by the Act should use personal information, which includes an identifiable photo or video of a student, only for the purpose it was collected for unless an exception applies. The register is how you show which purposes were agreed.
Why a single yes or no column is not enough
The most common register is a spreadsheet with one consent column. It breaks in predictable ways. A family happy with the newsletter may not want their child on social media. Answers change during the year and the spreadsheet does not. Copies multiply across shared drives, and nobody is sure which is current. And the register sits apart from the footage, so checking a video means scrubbing the timeline from memory.
What a working register holds
- The student. Name, year level and the identifier your student information system uses.
- Consent for each purpose. Separate answers for the newsletter, the website, social media and any other use you publish to.
- Biometric consent, separately. If any tool you use matches faces, keep a separate answer for that. Biometric templates are sensitive information under the Privacy Act 1988, and media consent does not cover them.
- Who answered and when. A parent, a carer or the student, and the date. Record it as fact rather than guessing.
- A review date. Consent given years ago may no longer reflect what a family wants.
- A photo. One clear, current photo makes it far easier to match a face in footage to the right row.
Keeping it current
Treat the register as the single source of truth and make every change there first. Set a time to review it, at least once a year and whenever enrolments change. When a family withdraws consent, update the register the same day and check what is already scheduled to publish.
Think about who can give consent. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's guidance says that, as a general rule, an organisation may assume a person aged 15 or over has capacity to consent unless something suggests otherwise. Many senior students will have views of their own about where they appear, and it helps to record whose answer the register holds.
Connecting the register to your footage
A register only protects students if it is applied to the footage. That is the step EveryFrame was built for. You import your register as a CSV with each student's name, media consent status, biometric consent status and one photo. A student information system can be linked instead: it is off by default and read only, and an automatic check can only withdraw consent, so a change that would grant consent waits for a person to approve it. A student without biometric consent is never enrolled or matched.
EveryFrame then matches faces in your footage against the register and judges each one per purpose, so the same student can be cleared for the newsletter and obscured for social media. When consent is withdrawn, every later review and export judges that student by the new answer. Read more about how EveryFrame works, about the Child Safe Standards and school video, or about what to do when a student in your footage has no consent.
Questions marketing teams ask
Can our media consent register stay in a spreadsheet?
Yes. A spreadsheet works if it holds consent for each purpose, a separate biometric answer, who answered and when, and a review date, and if there is only one current copy. EveryFrame imports a register as a CSV.
How often should a school review its media consent register?
Set a review time and keep to it, at least once a year and whenever enrolments change. Update the register the same day a family changes its answer, then check anything already scheduled to publish.
Can a student give media consent themselves?
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's guidance says an organisation may generally assume a person aged 15 or over has capacity to consent, unless something suggests otherwise. Record whose answer the register holds, whether a parent, a carer or the student.
What happens when a family withdraws consent?
Update the register first. In EveryFrame, every later review, sign off and export then judges that student by the new answer, and their register row lists what has already been exported with them in 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.