Dear all,
My thanks to all those who got in touch regarding data protection and implications for historic photograph collections. The responses I received confirmed just how grey an area this is for archivists, and therefore how hard it is to capture in a single policy.
Summary of responses:
- Little risk was deemed to be associated with photographs of individuals that were taken in a public setting or for editorial usage e.g. magazine, exhibition, online. It was assumed implied consent of any persons, identifiable or not, in these photos.
- Emphasis on the importance on having a clear takedown policy that can be enforced if any objection is raised to photographs being published online.
- One organisation has applied a closure period following advice they were given by their business. This applies to the publication of recent images containing people where permission agreements were unknown.
- The importance of adopting an image-by-image approach was also raised and this would depend on what the image is being used for and how old it is. Extremely difficult to apply a blanket policy when there is such a wide variety.
- Things to bear in mind with business collections specifically; what was the purpose of the image being taken? ; is it of a single identifiable individual or a larger group shot? If the photograph has been taken for the business, you would expect the business to be able to use them and therefore, they could be used within an archive collection?
- Common sense was regularly mentioned as playing a part in making decisions – for example:
o Not putting up very recent photos
o Taking care if they are photographs that form part of a private collection
o Not using photographs that may cause any embarrassment
- A related but separate question that was raised was about personal data in a photograph in relation to actual or implied race and ethnic origin.
- One piece of positive feedback that must be emphasised was ‘that people are generally delighted to see old photos of themselves or their relatives.’
However, responses from peers also raised concerns about the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Due to the fact that the new legislation will require from May 2018 subjects to give explicit consent to the use of any photographs in which they feature, it provides great concerns for accessioning photographs to archives in the future. GDPR is certainly something we have at the forefront of our minds here and we are proactively keeping abreast of the legislation over the coming year to see what it means for our Archive and Records Management policies, as well as our future records.
Unfortunately, more thoughts and questions rather than practical solutions; but hopefully solutions will follow as the new legislation becomes clearer for businesses/organisations, and their record-keeping.
In the meantime, there are some useful online resources that were shared as part of the responses which others may find helpful:
https://www.reading.ac.uk/internal/imps/DataProtection/DataProtectionGuidelines/imps-d-p-photographic.aspx
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-reform/overview-of-the-gdpr/introduction/
Best wishes,
Rachael Muir
Bank of England Archive.
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