Westfield Day Nursery in Easingwold, near York, has an award-winning website that shows the children's activities and achievements. The nursery was surprised to find that the Government's main agency on information technology in schools, Becta, said in its guidance Superhighway Safety that websites should not include photographs of individual children but should use only group or whole-class photographs with very general labels. The guidance also stated that websites should not use the names of children or adults in photographs.
Westfield Day Nursery owner Judith Tubb said, 'We directly ask parents to let us know in writing if they do not want their child's picture to be taken or published, but we have more than 100 children on our books and not one parent has said no.
'I can understand the concern, but where does it end? Local newspapers always have photographs of children, their full names, details of their school and sometimes even where they live.
'It would get ridiculous if it was all banned. We have followed some advice and now do not use the children's real names on the website, although I think parents are going to be disappointed when they see a picture of their child but with the wrong name.'
The nursery is asking people to debate the issue through its website. It hopes to restore the correct names to children's photographs in the future.
Stephen Carrick-Davies, development manager of children's internet charity Childnet International, agreed with Becta's advice. He said, 'We realise that by far the most abuse of children takes place in the home. But it is important to acknowledge that children can be vulnerable when using the Internet, although this should be taken in a balanced context. People are anxious about potential abuse via web pages and e-mail, but there are also tremendous positive gains from them.
'We totally endorse the Government advice that there should be no identifying information about children in public places, and that includes the Internet. I do not want to press the panic button but I feel it is important to give the issue some thought and to take some caution, because if one child is abused through contact on the Web it is one too many.' The website for Westfield Day Nursery is at www.westfield-nursery.co.ukand Childnet can be found at www.childnet-int.org
