By Will Sturgeon, 3 March 2004 18:00
NEWS Primary and secondary schools in the West Lothian area of Scotland have banned pupils from bringing camera phones into school.
The move, which will affect camera-phone owners among the 30,000 children in 77 schools in the area, has been taken over fears of how images taken within the school could be misused by paedophiles.
A report on the BBC claims some schools have reported instances of pupils taking photos of one another during PE lessons and then distributing them over the internet, raising fears that the pictures, once in the public domain, could fall into the wrong hands.
The ban is backed by the local education authority as well as the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association.
The biggest concern for teachers has been over the covert use of camera phones.
The small form factor and the discrete inclusion of camera lenses on many modern phones makes them difficult to distinguish from normal phones and while children may mean no harm by taking 'candid camera' style snaps of their friends, schools were clearly concerned about the pictures falling into the wrong hands.
However, parents who have been pestered into shelling out for fashionable new phones with built-in cameras, who want their kids to still carry a phone, will have to now shell out again for a more low-tech handset.
One concerned mother of two, Debbie Allen, 28, who doesn't want her children to stop carrying a mobile phone, told silicon.com: "It's a good idea for kids to carry mobile phones in case you're going to be late collecting them or need to make arrangements for somebody else to pick them up."
In response to the ban on camera phones she said: "I think too many people dictate too many things to parents in the vain hope that they are being PC. I think it's a little over the top. When I went to a school play once we were told that no cameras or videos allowed for the same reason."
In support of other parents faced with supplying children with new, camera-less phones she said: "I'd tell the school to shove it unless they are going to fund it."
Comments
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1. anonymous
Wow, that's pretty f*cking stupid.
2. anonymous
What's wrong with calling the school and asking them to contact the child. Also it causes all sorts of nasty jealousy issues if 1 child can and another can't afford them. Disruption during class time is another issue. Peer pressure is bad enough without picture fones!
3. Simon
I think the parent quoted has the right attitude !
There is far too much 'PC' and protectionism these days. When I were a lad, we were tought how to walk along roads to school (without pavements I'll add) without getting run over, and so on. These days it seems that everyone must be wrapped in cotton wool and protected from the big bad world, and this seems to be fuelled in part by the minority who expect everyone but themselves to take responsibility for their kids. But where does this leave the kids when they grow up and find out that life isn't like that in the real world ?
I'm not in any way condoning the 'bad' things that go on, but lets be realistic - if we banned everything that can be misused then life would be pretty dour : no internet, no photograhy (of any kind), no paintings, no sculpture. Yes, even the Greeks and Romans had porn !
Ahh, nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
4. anonymous
I do not think its the camera phones per se, that are causing the problem, but their usage.
Ie, a boy taking a picture of a girl, with the camera pointing upwards beneath her skirt, to see the colour of the day.
Nothing different to what lads did at school many moons ago, but now there is a permanent image of it.
5. Jan Huffman
How about considering the security enhancement of having cameras at the ready to photograph bad stuff coming down?
6. anonymous
I'm perplexed as to why we can't simply explain to our children why certain images must not be taken. We bombard them with sex education, we nag them constantly to exercise mis-trust of strangers and brow beat them into being even more on their guard of people they hold close to their hearts. We expect our children to understand their given homework when we as parents haven't got a clue and yet we find it beyond our abilities to spend a little time with them simply communicating and allowing them to become responsible adults.
7. anonymous
I disagree with the comment made from the ict technician in Scotland. My childs school does not allow the use of mobile phones in any shape or form. At various times I have felt the need to contact the school to inform my child that he will not be collected by myself but by another person. Only to find that the school have then called me at the end of the school day to verify who is in fact collecting him. Might I add that it was my son who upon leaving the school property and meeting the person collecting him then returned back to the school to check all was well at reception. I also feel compelled to make a comment about parents being unable to afford camera phones and the effects this could have on the children. If a parent can't afford named trainers for their children for PE, is it expected that other parents buy cheaper trainers for their children so as not to cause distress? Do we not as parents often tell our children that we can't afford things even when it's not true so that they can begin to grasp the understanding and value of money?
8. papa ratzi
I think in either Korea or Japan they are forcing phone manufacturers to introduce features to stop the "covert" use of phones, like a loud camara shutter noise so people know when there are photographed!
Simple solution really..!!
9. anonymous
I work for a large organisation that has banned the possession of camera phones on site. In Singapore many organisations have done the same including the Army. And they have good reason to do so.
However, if you go into a mobile phone shop you are very hard pressed to find a phone that doesn't have a camera! The phone manufacturers have to come up with a solution, for example making a noise when photos are taken, or they are going to find their sales declining.
10. Steve L
Has the school banned normal cameras too? Would the school ban a pupil with a photographic memory? And what if that pupil could draw well too. Dangerous. Something needs to be done. I'll call the Daily Mail.
11. anonymous
You will find its the local policy of many LEA to ban any video or image capture equipment from schools due to needing permission from all the parents to use such equipment on site.
12. anonymous
I don't see what all the fuss is about, how the hell did we manage before mobile phones ?
They should be banned from lessons altogether anyway, like they are in most workplaces.
Parents can still get a hold of the kids through normal school channels.
13. tim bain
It's a crying shame that the schools can't watch their employees backgrounds more carefully, and let kids be kids, I can think of at least one caretaker that was a bigger danger than a kid with a camera phone.
Phones make kids safer, and kids aren't the ones that need watching in schools.