Nursery staff are set to be banned from using their phones in playrooms under a Government crackdown aimed at preventing child abuse, The i Paper can reveal.

Under the plans, nurseries and childminders will also be told to take no more than one picture of each child per day – and not post any photographs of children on social media.

The official guidance, expected this month, comes after a “chilling” case in which a worker filmed himself abusing children at a nursery in north London.

Vincent Chan, 45, was jailed in February after abusing girls at a Bright Horizons nursery in West Hampstead, where he worked between 2017 and 2024.

The case, which police described as “harrowing”, triggered a safeguarding review by the previous education secretary and was among a series of shocking incidents across the sector.

The changes also follow high-profile cyber attacks. Last year, hackers attempted to extort the Kido nursery chain and parents using photos and personal details of roughly 8,000 children.

One picture per day

Under the new rules, nursery staff, childminders and visitors will be told not to use personal phones and digital devices in childcare areas, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Staff will be expected to use only one designated work device, with nudity filters on, to take up to one photograph of each child per day.

Parents will be able to request additional pictures when their child is initially settling in but will transition to the reduced number to avoid “unintended consequences”, the guidance is set to recommend.

The perils of photo-taking identified by the Government include misuse by “malicious actors”, data leaks, distracting staff from focusing on children’s needs and normalising frequent digital device usage to children.

Work phones, tablets or computers will need to be checked by a supervisor each month for suspicious activity, such as photo deletion, sharing of images and log-ins to personal social media accounts and emails, the guidance is expected to say.

These checks will need to happen on unpredictable days so staff cannot delete evidence of inappropriate behaviour in advance.

Any photographs or videos of children would also need written permission from parents under the new rules, with an explanation of why images are taken, with whom they are shared and how they are stored and deleted.

Vicki Shotbolt, founder of Parent Zone, which supports families to stay safe online, said abuse cases have been “absolutely horrifying” for parents. It was “deeply problematic” that some nurseries were allowing staff to take photographs of children using their personal phones, she said.

She said it is “understandable” that some parents want nurseries to send them photos to “make sure” their children are “happy”.

But she warned: “It’s just as important that parents are saying to their nurseries or whoever’s looking after their child, ‘Please tell me how you’re taking the photos, how you’re storing them and how you’re going to delete them afterwards.’ It’s a high-risk activity now.”

Children’s device use should be closely supervised, with parental controls and age restrictions enabled where available, the guidance is expected to say.

‘Don’t post photos of children online’

Nurseries will be told to avoid posting photographs of children on social media over concerns they could be used to create AI-generated images of child sexual abuse.

Under the guidance, identifiable pictures of children should not be uploaded to AI tools because many retain data or share it with third parties.

Meanwhile, parents’ requests for CCTV footage, photographs or learning journals related to their child should be answered within a month – including any made verbally.

The i Paper understands he Government is still considering whether to make CCTV mandatory in childcare settings – but the guidance warns that nurseries need to consider how they manage footage before installing cameras.

Thomas Dyson, of the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK watchdog that removes online child abuse images, said the rapid development of AI has put families at risk of “bad actors” using images of children for “nefarious purposes”.

“People can take genuine innocent imagery from a website, and that might be a nursery school website, and then use AI to manipulate that, turn it into sexually explicit content, and then use it for blackmail,” he said. “We’ve seen that happen.”

Ben Thomas, education officer at the UNISON trade union, which represents nursery workers, said staff need the right working conditions to enforce the guidance effectively.

“Staff shortages and high turnover are major problems as it’s hard to build a strong safeguarding culture when teams change so frequently,” he said.

“The standard of training can also vary considerably. Ideally, all staff would receive specialist, in-person training with regular refreshers – unfortunately, many have to make do with an online option they’re expected to complete in their own time.”

A Bright Horizons spokesperson said they were “appalled” by Chan’s crimes and “welcome any discussion and review aimed at improving safeguarding controls within nurseries”.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The safety of our youngest children must always come first, which is why we continually review the safeguarding measures and requirements in place for early years settings.

“As part of this work, we are developing guidance for the early years sector to help settings keep children as safe as possible when using digital devices.”