New online safety policy for children’s videos and photos
At Chocolate Films, we've been putting cameras into kids' hands for 25 years now. From DV tapes to cards, the technology has changed a lot. However, one thing we've never wavered on, it's our belief that making films and animations is a valuable experience. It’s creative, it’s fun and it's a proper skill, problem-solving, teamwork, telling a story, sticking with something until it works.
For just as long, we've loved shouting about that work. Photos from workshops on our website, films posted for the world to see, that little buzz when a parent spots their kid's short film shared online. It's always felt like the natural last step of the whole creative process.
But we’ve changed our approach to this and we wanted to explain why properly, rather than just quietly swap out some photos and hope nobody asks.
What's prompted this?
The Internet Watch Foundation and the National Crime Agency recently put out joint guidance for parents, carers and anyone working with children. It lays out, calmly and without scaremongering, how AI is increasingly being misused to take completely ordinary photos of kids and turn them into abusive material. Sometimes called "deepfakes," sometimes made with so-called "nudifying" tools that alter existing images.
This isn't a response to anything happening to our own photos. It's about the wider picture: any photo of a child, once it's online, is now within reach of tools like these. The guidance is blunt about it. Even the most innocent photo, a school trip, a birthday, a workshop session, can be misused this way. Under UK law, it doesn't matter how the image was made or how real it looks. AI-generated abuse imagery is illegal, full stop.
The IWF and NCA's advice is pretty simple in the end: think hard before you post pictures of children publicly, and cut it out where you reasonably can. So we have.
What are we doing about it?
We spent a while thinking about how to respond in a way that keeps the thing we actually care about (kids learning to make stuff) completely intact, while taking this seriously. Here's where we landed.
The workshops aren't changing. At all. Nothing about what we teach or how we teach it is being watered down. Kids will still be writing scripts, building characters, storyboarding, filming, animating frame by frame, editing it all together. We're not backing away from any of that. If anything, this whole situation has reminded us how much we believe in it. Learning to make a film or an animation gives kids a way to think, to problem-solve, to express something that didn't have words before. That's not going anywhere.
You'll still get every film and photo, just not out in public. Everything your child makes, and every photo from the session, still gets shared. Directly with you, with schools, with the young people themselves, exactly as it always has. You'll still see it, still be proud of it, still get to keep it. What's changing is putting that same material out onto the open internet where anyone can find it.
Our public-facing stuff is going animated. From here on, when you see us talking about our work on the website, in blogs, on social media, you'll see illustrations and animation rather than photos of actual kids. Website's going to look a bit different for a while as we make that switch. We think it's a good look on us, actually. We're an animation company. Using our own craft to represent our own work feels like it fits rather than feels like a compromise.
Why we think this is the right call
We could've told ourselves this doesn't really apply to us. None of our photos have ever been misused, and there's no specific incident behind this. But that's kind of the point of the guidance. It's not about reacting to something that's already gone wrong, it's about adjusting before it does, because the risk has changed for anyone who posts photos of kids online, whether that's us, a school, or a proud parent on Facebook.
We run these workshops because we think creativity matters. Being able to make something, to shape an idea into a film or a character on screen, is a skill worth having and a brilliant way to spend a Saturday. Taking that seriously means taking the responsibility that comes with it seriously too, even the bits that didn't need much thought a couple of years ago. Swapping photos for illustrations is a small change on our end. What it removes is one more way those photos could ever be misused. Easy trade.
What this means if your child comes to our workshops
The workshop itself: unchanged. Same sessions, same skills, same fun.
You, your child's school, and your child will still get every film and photo, sent directly and privately, same as always.
You won't see new photos or videos of children on our website or socials from now on, just illustrations and animation.
Got a question about how existing photos or footage have been used, or anything in your consent forms? Just ask. We're happy to talk it through.
If you want a proper read on this, the IWF and NCA's parent guide is worth ten minutes of anyone's time, whether your kids come to us or not. It's practical, it's not designed to scare you, and it's got useful stuff on privacy settings and conversations to have with your kids.
Twenty-five years on, what we believe hasn't moved an inch: making films and animations is a brilliant, useful thing for a kid to learn how to do, and it should be joyful while they're doing it. We're just getting a bit smarter about the bit that happens after the camera stops rolling. That feels like exactly the right thing to be doing.
