Does anyone have a template for terms and conditions when booking a client for a photo session?
Does UK privacy law stop us from displaying promotional images on a website?
Thanks.
Dear Gary,
There is no coherent UK privacy law. The main considerations in your case would be:
1 Are you holding them up to ridicule? Showing someone in an (unwarrantedly) poor light (figuratively, not literally) has always been actionable and the principle has lately been extended e.g. to supermodels come out of drug rehab clinics.
2 Are you implying things about them that you do not know to be true? For example, a woman in a short skirt and fishnet stockings standing on a corner in the red light district MIGHT be a vicar's wife on a way to a party, so don't caption the picture 'Tart' unless you're certain.
3 Closely related to the above is 'commercial' versus 'editorial' use, and this has not been well defined. Most decent sane people would argue that even publication in a book or magazine is 'editorial' and therefore legitimate, but there are some publishers' lawyers who say that if you're paid for (or expecting to be paid for) the pics, this is 'commercial' use. I regard this as an ass-covering exercise, not as good legal advice, and some publishers have admitted as much to me, but I would be remiss if I did not mention it.
4 Is it commercially wise to publish the pics in this way? If your subjects don't mind, or are unlikely to mind, don't worry about this bit. If they are likely to complain, it may do you more harm than good, even if they have no legal basis for doing so. Ask them: many will be flattered to appear on your web-site.
It's also worth adding that a lot of politicians, supermodels and others who have an unwarrantedly high opinion of themselves would LOVE a privacy law, and indeed often make comments as if there were one. Probably, there will be one day; the French already have one
de facto, though not (as far as I am aware)
de jure in the sense of its appearing in the Code. But at the moment, the above is a fair summary of the exceedingly woolly situation in the UK.
Cheers,
R. (
www.rogerandfrances.com)
