At a ‘medieval’ event in Cardiff Castle in 2008 the following notice was
prominently displayed at the entrance “Photography is taking place in the
Castle this evening. The images will be used for future promotional purposes of
this event and Cardiff Castle in general. If you do not wish to be included in
the photographs, please inform the photographer before the photograph is
taken. Thank you.”
A professional photographer engaged by the Council took numerous
photographs some of which were used in publicity for the 2009 event. Many of
these were general crowd shots and there is no issue with that.
During the event however the photographer took close up shots of several
children involved in activities. All with the tacit consent of the adults they
were with, who would have been fully aware that the photos were being taken.
The image of one child was used prominently on the front of leaflets, posters
and other promotional material. As the team says “This image was used in
good faith and with the best of intentions - it’s such a charming picture of a
child, perfectly reflecting the enjoyment that we wanted to portray. We
believed that the picture was taken under fair circumstances, that the
parents were aware that such photography was being taken, especially since
2 other close-ups were also done of the same child, for which the parents
must have seen the photographer at work”
However we have no direct evidence that the parents were in fact present. It
could have been older sister / aunt or neighbour for all we know.
Father has now written to complain that we have breached DP and asked
what we intend to do to remedy the situation.
My own inclination is that we do not have consent and the processing is not
fair. Whilst the notice may be adequate for adults / crowd scenes, where the
photographer has targeted individuals (esp children) it is incumbent on him /
her to do more and e.g. speak to the carers and hand them a card with
contact details (it is probably unrealistic given the nature of the event to
expect form filling and signatures).
1. Do others think we have breached DPA / HRA
2. If so, what steps should be taken to remedy. Fortunately this is not like the
Newham case a few years ago (image used in AIDs literature) so there is no
suggestion of specific damage. Is an apology and review of future procedure
enough ? Obviously we will destroy the ‘negatives / jpg files and never use the
images again. We cannot recall what is out there. Should we stop using
existing stocks of the promo leaflet or could we bend Condition 6 to say that
in the absence of any distress / damage (we suspect father is ‘trying it on’ to
make a buck) using existing stock rather than wasting public funds in
destroying and reprinting promo literature is not unwarranted.
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