I have written and presented at workshops about the importance of being aware of your online profile and how easy it can be for people to find out EVERYTHING about you via Google search. In many cases this can be a great thing. Like when a long-lost friend or relative makes contact or someone acknowledges the work of you and your students online. But it can have serious and sometimes life-changing consequences such as in the case of Stacy Snyder, who was denied a teaching degree by Millersville University in the US for having a “drunken pirate” photo in her Facebook album.

Just last evening I had news of a similar thing occurring to a teacher I have close contact with here in Hong Kong. This teacher, like others I work with, shares details of life as an expat teacher on Facebook. It may not come as a huge surprise to anyone reading this that the out of school life of an expatriate teacher occasionally involves visits to places where beverage slightly stronger than iced tea is served. Photos of such happy establishments and the beverage partaken usually find their way onto many Facebook photo albums and, if the privacy settings for your photo albums on Facebook are left as the default, as most are, then the whole world is able to see what you are getting up to and with whom if they wish.

This HK teacher informed me that they were called into their Principal’s office and told that a parent at the school had been referred to their Facebook account via a student and had reacted very strongly to what they saw on it. As a result, the parent had put in a complaint to both the Education Bureau of Hong Kong and the school concerned to suggest that the teacher be found unsuitable to teach children.

Fortunately, the school and the Senior Management Team were very rational and discussed the matter with the teacher and asked them to either secure or remove the offending material.

Would your employer be as understanding?

Perhaps it might be worth the time to secure your information on social networks so that you are never in the position to have to find out.

Update: Dan Everest of Yew Chung International School – Primary Section contacted me after reading this post and sent me a guide to securing Facebook(PDF) and another on Facebook Photo Safety(PDF). I have linked to them here for your reference.

Photo: Warning, warning warning by Spotted drum ♥