Public Statement from Ken Murphy, Lifetouch Group CEO, on recent rumors around student privacy.
At Lifetouch, student safety goes beyond the camera lens. As a trusted partner to schools for 90 years, we’re committed to protecting the privacy and personal information of every student we serve.
When Lifetouch photographers take your student’s picture, that image is safeguarded for families and schools, only, with no exceptions.
Lifetouch does not – and has never provided – images to any third party.
Amidst a sea of misinformation, here are the facts:
Lifetouch images are shared only for the purposes of school records and to allow parents or guardians to purchase them. Additionally, as part of our decades long relationship with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Lifetouch prints SmileSafe cards free of charge for each student we photograph that families can use with law enforcement if a child goes missing.
Lifetouch follows all applicable federal, state, and local data privacy laws, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In fact, Lifetouch was the first school photography company to sign a voluntary and enforceable privacy pledge—reaffirming our deep commitment to protecting school communities.
Lifetouch never shares, sells, or licenses student images to train AI models, including large language models, or facial recognition technology. Lifetouch has never provided images for such purposes to any other third party.
Funds managed by subsidiaries of Apollo Global Management are investors in Shutterfly, the parent company of Lifetouch. Neither Apollo nor its funds are involved in the day-to-day operations of Lifetouch and therefore no one employed by Apollo has ever had access to any student images.
We value the trust you put in us to safeguard your students’ images, and we are proud to help families across the country preserve these milestone memories.
Our commitments to student safety are publicly available here: