Childcare: WA puts hand up to join rest of nation in CCTV safety trial at centres across the State

The WA Government is choosing childcare centres to be part of a national CCTV trial but it doesn’t know which services already have cameras installed. Education ministers from across the nation included a trial of security cameras in 300 Australian childcare centres in measures announced last week, aimed at boosting child safety in the sector. Parents, educators, advocates and politicians have become increasingly concerned about safety and quality in child care after horrific allegations of sexual abuse in centres laid bare the deepening issues with regulation of the sector. The most recent case saw Joshua Dale Brown who worked across multiple Victorian centres being charged with dozens of counts of alleged sexual abuse. The new child safety measures also include giving parents more information about the quality and regulation of services. From Monday, the Starting Blocks website will include details of when a regulator last visited a childcare service, any conditions placed on the provider, and clearer information on the links between services and the providers that run them Details of compliance breaches and enforcement actions will be added to the site from November. Federal Early Childhood Education Minister Jess Walsh said greater transparency and accountability would drive better standards for Australian children. The CCTV trial is expected to start in October or November and will examine what should be best practice in terms of installing the cameras, monitoring them and storing the footage. WA Education Minister Sabine Winton, along with all other States and Territories, agreed to be part of the trial and is currently working with the regulator to decide how it will roll out. If the centres are chosen on a population basis, WA could expect to see about 30 services involved. UNICEF’s head of digital policy, John Livingstone, warned that installing security cameras was no “magic solution”, but it could be one piece of the puzzle to better protecting children. However, there were serious privacy considerations that had to be factored in. “Kids of that age, under five, they rely entirely on adults to protect their privacy. They can’t consent to things themselves,” Mr Livingstone told The West. “Every time there’s a piece of CCTV footage that includes a child, every time a staff member takes a photo of a child with their phone, every time we upload an image of a child to social media, each step is introducing new privacy risks. The trial must uncover answers to questions such as where cameras should be installed, who collected and stored the footage, and how long it was kept for. But if it showed that CCTV in childcare centres could be implemented in a safe way with robust controls and did improve safety, “then it could be a really positive thing”. Federal minister Jason Clare said last week it was vital not to create a “honeypot for bad people” with the material collected by cameras. The Federal Government is keen to get a representative sample of childcare centres involved – large for-profit providers, small centres, community-run services – although the States are choosing who will take part in their jurisdictions. It’s also set aside $21 million to help smaller centres that don’t already have CCTV installed pay for it. Two of the nation’s largest for-profit childcare providers, G8 and Affinity, announced in July they would start rolling out CCTV in their services. Goodstart, the largest not-for-profit provider, has been doing so since 2022. It has a lengthy policy publicly available online that includes guidance that cameras should never be installed in adult or children’s toilets, bathrooms or nappy change areas, staff rooms or centre directors’ offices, that they don’t record sound, and that footage is wiped after 30 days unless it has to be kept for legal reasons. WA’s Education and Care Regulatory Unit (ECRU) doesn’t currently hold data on how many childcare services in the State have CCTV installed. A Department of Communities spokesperson said the decision to install CCTC rested with the service provider at the moment. “ECRU welcomes the implementation of measures that enhance child safety within education and care settings,” they said. Mr Livingstone said while there was a reassessment of child safety measures, everything should be on the table – including the common practice of childcare centres sharing photos with parents about what their children are up to during the day. “Every issue, every practice we look at, we think, ‘Is this providing for children’s safety?’” he said. “We want to make sure parents are confident that their kids are doing great things at childcare centres, they’re learning and having fun and socialising. “And sometimes being able to share that that kind of info in the moment with parents can be a positive thing, but it all needs to come with balance.”