General Good Practice on the Use of Cameras and Images in the University
When can I take a photograph of someone?
There is no straightforward answer to this question; it depends on the expectation of privacy of the individuals involved and the purpose for which the image is taken.Expectation of privacy
When a photograph can and cannot be taken legally depends to a great extent on the individual’s expectation of privacy when that image was taken. For example, someone walking down the street, or sitting in a room with a thousand people (for example at a graduation ceremony) would have a much lower expectation of privacy than when in the waiting room of a fertility clinic or unconscious on an operating table. You are unlikely to require consent to photograph people in the street or at a large public event, but it is essential that you obtain consent before photographing individuals in a clinical environment. Good practice requires that children’s images also be treated with particular care. You are strongly advised not to use an image of a child where the parent consents but the child does not.
Purpose of the images
The purpose for which images have been taken is also relevant; photos taken purely for personal use (for example of friends at a party or by a parent of a child at a school nativity play for the family album) are not subject to the Data Protection Act. Photographs taken for business purposes, such as teaching, research, publication, publicity, advertising, administration, or the prevention or detection of crime, are subject to the Act and to the University Policy on the Use of Cameras and Images in the University.
It is also important to bear in mind that
- photographs taken for one purpose (e.g. personal use) cannot be used for another (e.g. business use) without the consent of the individuals in the photographs
- blocking out the eyes in a photograph does not anonymise it
- images taken as part of medical treatment are legally part of the medical record
- personal data obtained by the University, including photographs, can only be legally held on University equipment and must not be held on cameras, computers or other equipment that are not under the University’s control
- it is illegal to transfer personal data from one organisation to another without the consent of the data subject.
How should I get permission to take photographs?
In many cases, such as when taking photographs for publicity purposes, asking for and receiving permission to take the photograph will be enough to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act. However, when taking and using photographs it is important to remember your legal duty to process data fairly and to protect individuals from unwarranted damage or distress. Therefore, the more likely it is that a reasonable person could be damaged or distressed by the use of their image, the more care you should take to obtain their informed consent to take and use the image. Bear in mind that others may not share your views on the publication of their image. Consent must always be obtained to use images for the purposes of teaching or research where an individual is clearly identifiable.
What about image collections?
Image banks are immensely valuable assets and essential for teaching and research. However, successful, useful and relevant photograph collections and image banks are costly and labour intensive, they require significant computer and/or physical space and, if human images are involved, a great deal of administration and expertise to ensure they conform to the complex legal, ethical and regulatory requirements now in existence.It is possible that colleagues may have amassed collections of images that were taken before the existence of the Data Protection Act when the norms and values of society were very different from those of today. These collections must, nevertheless, be treated in line with the University Policy on the Use of Cameras and Images in the University.
Although individuals may be very attached to the image collections they have acquired, it is important to understand that such collections are only of real value if:
- they have been obtained fairly and with consent,
- they are of good quality - it is strongly recommended that images are taken, wherever possible, by professional illustrators,
- and they are accompanied by relevant “metadata” (supporting information such as names of the people in the picture, the name of the medical condition being illustrated, the name of the research project, evidence of consent for the picture to be taken and used, etc).
Any image collection takes up valuable space and IT resources. Collections that are poor in quality, unconsented, of dubious provenance and without supporting metadata are not usually suitable for teaching, research, illustration or publication and are often of little value to historians. They rarely merit the expense required to store and use them in a way that does not expose the University to the risk of a legal claim or reputational damage and it is difficult to think of a good reason to keep them. Departments which decide to dispose of old collections should seek advice first and must ensure they are destroyed securely.