Social Media Checks in Education

May 2nd, 2024 by Daisy Birch

The significance of Social Media Screening for educators in schools

Under the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance, The Department for Education, proposes that schools should perform social media and online investigations on potential candidates to preserve the school’s reputation and ensure the safety of children. Similar to DBS checks, this ensures that the candidate does not pose a risk to vulnerable groups.

What are Social Media Checks?

Social media checks analyse a candidate’s online presence to detect negative behaviours like bullying, racism, nudity, and excessive use of inappropriate language. They also uncover potential privacy breaches such as information leaks and content that criticises employers.

Social media checks additionally examine affiliations with prescribed organisations and groups associated with violence or extremism, as well as the extent of a candidate’s connections.

What can DDC Offer?

Social media checks are an effective means of highlighting candidates who align with the school’s culture and adhere to policies regarding social media usage, confidentiality, and online branding.

DDC’s social media screening process utilises cutting-edge search tools and methods to identify relevant information efficiently and lawfully. Employing a compliant service allows for the seamless integration of just and lawful online searches into your pre-employment screening procedures, ensuring adherence to UK legislation without any risk of violation or bias. Plus, it saves you valuable time searching the internet.

What does a social media check include?

The search extends well beyond commonly known platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It encompasses hundreds of diverse websites and millions of web pages to evaluate an individual’s online behaviour and communication patterns across an extensive digital presence, where they may have established a public profile.

How are social media check results presented?

You will be provided with a screening report which outlines the risks and any endorsement of illegal activities such as drug use, theft, weapons, and fraud. This empowers you, the employer, to make informed and decisions.

The final reports are entirely impartial, with no bias towards protected characteristics. DDC safeguards you from any allegations of discrimination or prejudice by ensuring continuous compliance throughout the recruitment procedure. This alleviates the temptation to conduct web searches on applicants, which may infringe upon an individual’s privacy.

How are social media checks conducted?

You can request and manage your social media checks through DDC’s online screening platform.

Simply enter basic details about the applicant and let DDC do the rest.

Once the final screening report is available you will receive an email notification to access and review the result.