Staff Mobile Phones / Cameras

[mccourt]

Hi, not sure this is the right forum or not... we've commissioned an independent safeguarding audit. One of the points raised was concern over staff having work issued mobile phones with cameras and lack of oversight of their usage. We have AUP in place but they seem to be wanting a technical solution to it.

 

Now, I have some issues with this as a finding/recommendation... does it also apply to iPad/other devices? I guess the phone is smaller and maybe it is easier to take a photo surreptiously on a phone than a tablet. Essentially I am wondering what technical controls, if any, other schools/peers have in place in regards to camera usage on staff mobile phones. It is not something I have come across before. Beyond giving everyone a Nokia 3310 I can't think of a good solution and even then that would curtail us using the cameras for entirely valid reasons e.g. taking photos of work etc

 

Thanks for any suggestions

[TechMonkey]

Do you have phone exclusion areas? At a previous place we had areas that no phones were allowed, with signs up. This applied to all staff and parents. This way you can limit certain risks. Beyond that, you are issuing devices so personal devices aren't being used, as they are company devices you can access them at any point (with the correct policies in place) which would be harder with personal devices.

 

You could disable the camera via an MDM, but that seems like overkill to me.

 

I'd push back to them and ask what they are expecting and why cameras are completely banned. Get clarification of the objection.

[DavR]

We had to put a policy in place to prevent staff using their phones to take pictures in the classroom, and that any picture had to be taken on a school issued device. To then try and say staff shouldn't be using a school-issued mobile phone seems a bit strong.

 

As long as you've got AUP in place, policies that state that devices can and will be searched/monitored, and the devices enrolled in an MDM, I'm not sure what more you can be asked to do. Beyond perhaps a safeguarding monitoring system client installed, and I don't know if those even exist.

 

I'm sure you've got a good business case for using the issued mobile phones, so I would note their concern, but put it down as an acceptable risk. Maybe you can do a risk assessment from a safeguarding perspective and get it signed by SLT to say that you note the risks and here's how you've mitigated them. Or a DPIA from a data protection angle, perhaps.

[jmak]

I think in a school I would want to enrol work issued phones in an MDM. It would have the effect (benefit?) of being able to show oversight of the devices. It also allows remote wipe of stolen devices, deployment of apps, application of security policies.

 

It's fairly standard in lots of businesses and schools.

[PotNoodleTech]

This seems more of a lack of trust / professionalism issue than a technical issue. All staff should be instructed not to use their personal phone for any work related task, especially taking photos, that's a "safeguarding" given in every school,

 

But to issue staff devices for them to use "professionally" and then say "by the way we don't rust you to be professional so please don't risk using them" is a bit extreme.

 

You either trust your staff, particularly teachers as professionals, or you don't. If you don't, then you've got much bigger issues at hand in your school than how they use their work phones.

[mavhc]

You can't take photos of children! but you can be with them for years telling them anything you want and they'll be no evidence of anything you said

 

Tech solution: don't allow photos to be deleted, sync it all to a place that can be monitored, don't allow photos to be sent to a non school system, disable bluetooth, usb, email etc

[dhicks]

One of the points raised was concern over staff having work issued mobile phones

 

As has been pointed already in this thread, the whole point of work-issued mobile phones would be that they can be managed, so any photos / other content produced or used on them could be tracked. The concern might be that people can't tell the difference between work and personal mobiles, so with mobile phones usage around the school normalised, people might be using personal phones. My solution would be to make it obvious which phones are work ones - maybe a bright, obvious custom phone case with the school logo on.

[mccourt]

The devices aren't on an MDM at the moment, largely due to us being quite a small school and going back to PotNoodleTech/mahvc's points - you give the device to professionals and expect them to abide by rules/policies accordingly, in the same way you would with other equipment. That said, we can look into it and work out if it is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I can see the point of the devices looking largely the same as personal phones and I really like the idea of a low tech bright pink cover. I would agree with an SLT risk assessment too/DPIA too.