Photos of students on student O365 address book

[johnabbots]

Good Morning everyone,

 

 

We have had a concern raised that students can see other students pictures (tiny 4k thumbnail) on the O365 email address book and that students could then share these along with the names online.

 

We could remove the pictures or the student address list completely but just wanted to know others thoughts first and where we stand with GDPR etc.

 

 

Cheers

[robyholmes]

My view of this is Office 365 is a secure school platform. Students can put pictures on it (Efficiently giving consent, they did it not you). If other students take this and publish these online, that's outside your control.

 

What stops students taking pictures in corridor and posting it online?

[johnabbots]

This is partly true but our Photos are synchronised from Sims so they did not choose to have them visible it just makes life easier for staff to identify.

 

Cheers

[enjay]

This is partly true but our Photos are synchronised from Sims so they did not choose to have them visible it just makes life easier for staff to identify.

 

This is why we don't sync photos from SIMS to Google Apps, because it could display the photo to anyone outside the school who the student emails. Some students have added profile images, but that's their choice (also very few of the students' profile images are images of themselves anyway)

[johnabbots]

I know O365 won't send the photo with the email outside of the organisation so this sounds like it differs somewhat from Google Apps. Think we are going to end up removing them I was just interested to know what other schools do as I know a lot will be using Salamander and the likes to sync pictures.

 

Cheers

[enjay]

If the photos are only visible internally, I'd leave it alone. As @RobHolmes says, students could take their own photos for inappropriate use too.

[leegcvcc]

we use Salamander and sync photos from SIMS for students. They are only visible internally. Some students do change them and the Salamander resets them overnight, so they get bored and have stopped doing it bar the odd few that have some time to kill, for little gain!

[crimsonspanner]

Forgive my candour, but it's a very minor issue. In the grand scheme of things, there will be FAR greater data protection risks to concentrate on than this inside a school and this is the message I'd be relaying back.

 

Provided:

1) you have a solid contract with the service provider (tick - MS have a comprehensive GDPR-compatible contract)

2) have ensured that the photo won't get shared with externally bound emails (tick)

 

I'd say you have taken reasonable measures to safeguard the personal information in question. So, this now becomes more of an acceptable use issue with the students and that is the lens through which I would be reviewing this matter.