The situation
In the school staff’s WhatsApp group, a colleague shares a photo of a first-year secondary student asleep in class, mouth open, with a mocking comment. Within minutes the reactions come in: laughing emojis, a “hahaha just like his uncle”, and someone who forwards it “to the afternoon-shift group”. You know the student: he is a quiet boy whose family is going through a hard time, and you suspect he falls asleep because he works with his father in the early hours. Nobody in the group has objected. The photo has already left the original group and you do not know how far it will travel. These are teaching and administrative staff: all adults, all with duties towards that student.
◆ The comment on each course of action is generated by AI from this section’s legal framework, whose official texts are in Spanish. It orients you; always verify the article in the legal framework.
For whoever facilitates
Facilitator’s notes
The law looks at this photo from the student’s side, not the chat’s. Disclosing the image of a child or adolescent in a way that may affect their development, their honour or their reputation, or that stigmatises their conduct, is an aggravated attack on privacy (Art. 186, Ley 74-25); their image and identity are expressly protected (Art. 12, Ley 136-03 — the Code for the Protection of Children and Adolescents), and the intentional capture or use of personal data by automated means and without consent has its own criminal definition (Art. 198, Ley 74-25). On the ethical layer, treating the student with dignity — no nicknames, no mockery — is a duty of staff (Art. 11, Orden Departamental 22/2023 — the MINERD code of ethics) and the restrictions reach every form of violence and humiliation (Art. 14, Orden Departamental 22/2023). Options a and c reinforce each other: objecting in the very space where the mockery happened repairs the culture of the group, and the school leadership can do what a lone teacher cannot — check the deletion across every chat and set the rule for all staff. Option b manages to delete one copy, but leaves intact the message that in that group mocking a student costs nothing. Option d confuses documenting with waiting: the harm does not begin when the photo reaches families, but when the staff who were supposed to protect the boy laugh at him. Question for the group: what explicit agreements about students’ images does our staff group have — or need?
The team’s commentary
Two readings of this scenario
Español — The Spanish version is the reference text — the legal verification described in the audit report was carried out on it.
Audit report — the independent legal review of this material, with the errors we found and corrected (page in Spanish).
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