The new school year has kicked in and families everywhere are scrambling to get the kids out of the door in time to make it for the first bell. Most of us can look back on our school days – braces, odd haircuts, ugly clothes and all – with the help of our school photos, those portraits that painfully documented each school year. But class photos, and the photos in their paper, fake-wood frames sent to grandparents the world over, may no longer be made available. GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation instituted by the EU in 2016, has hit the classroom.
GDPR’s regulations require, that in the case of school photos, parents and guardians must sign a release form allowing the photograph of their child be taken. This means a lot of paperwork, and some schools just don’t feel like they have the time and energy to make that effort. The city of Malmö has made just that decision for all of it’s public schools. Other municipalities have said they’ll keep up the tradition, and take on the paperwork, at least for the time being.
GDPR has caused administrative headaches for much more than just schools. The cost of implementing GDPR rules, especially for small businesses, has been by all accounts astronomical – hurting the small business that GDPR was meant to help. In many cases, only the (already) strong have survived.
Type in “GDPR uninten” … and the rest is filled in by Google automatically. The latest unintended consequence is the demise of the school photograph. Not a big deal, perhaps, but most certainly something that the regulators didn’t see happening.