Short answer: yes. Nothing in the 2026 changes bans marketing, storytelling or celebrating your service online. What changed is how photos and videos of children may be captured, stored and shared, and services that never wrote those habits down now have to. Here is the plain language version.
From 27 February 2026, amendments to the National Law and National Regulations limit the use of personal digital devices inside education and care services and regulate how images and videos of children are captured, stored and transmitted. The changes build on the National Model Code that many services had already adopted voluntarily, and they make the core of it enforceable: approved providers need clear policies covering which devices take photos, who can access them, where files live and when they are deleted.
The one sentence summary for a busy director: the educator's personal phone is no longer a camera, and "we've always done it this way" is no longer a policy. Your regulatory authority and ACECQA publish the formal guidance, and your approved provider should sign off on whatever workflow you land on.
No. The rules target sloppy practice, not publicity. A service that films on a service supplied device, holds current written permission from families, stores files in a controlled place and deletes them on schedule can keep publishing exactly as warmly as before. What the changes really ended is the grey zone: quick snaps on personal phones, consent forms from 2019 nobody can find, and photo libraries scattered across staff camera rolls.
Plenty of centres have quietly stopped posting since February because nobody was sure what was still allowed. That silence is a marketing problem wearing a compliance costume, and it is entirely fixable.
Five parts, and none of them are complicated once written down:
Here is the part most services miss. The best performing childcare content right now barely shows children at all. Educator spotlights, room and environment tours, practice explainers to camera, a day in the life of the role, tips for families at pick up time: these formats build trust with families, attract educators in a shortage market, and carry close to zero image risk. Our own house style uses no children's faces anywhere, and it consistently outperforms the alternative. Compliance and reach are not a trade off. They point the same direction.
Nominate the service device and retire personal phones from capture today. Pull out the current permission forms and check they actually cover social media use. Pick one storage location and clear the device roll into it. Write the one page playbook. Then restart posting with an educator led format while the full system settles in.
If your current forms are specific about social media use and families signed them knowingly, you may be fine. If they are vague, old or missing, refresh them. A permission system you can show an assessor beats one you have to explain.
That is exactly the habit the changes target. Deleting afterwards does not undo capture on a personal device, and it leaves no audit trail. Use a service supplied device only.
The safest practice is to review historical posts against current permissions, especially for children of families who have withdrawn consent or left the service. A quiet quarterly review beats a scramble later.
The opposite. Services that keep publishing confidently while competitors go silent will own their local feed. The rules raised the floor, not the ceiling.
Our Compliance Safe Content Setup builds the whole workflow: device practice, permission system, storage, playbook and team training, for $950, and it comes free inside any monthly content partnership. Or start smaller with the $299 Centre Marketing Scorecard and see where you stand first.
This article is practical guidance from a working early childhood media professional, not legal advice. Confirm your obligations with ACECQA guidance, your regulatory authority and your approved provider.