Model Consent: Why There Is No Work Without It
In image processing, consent is neither paperwork nor a courtesy. It is the only thing separating professional work from an offence, and the only thing that protects both parties.
Consent to a shoot is not consent to processing
Someone came to a shoot voluntarily. That means consent to being photographed — and nothing else. Publication, digital processing, alteration of the image, use of the face in synthetic material are four separate points, each agreed explicitly.
What the document must contain
- Who was photographed and who photographed them, with real details
- What exactly may be done with the material, including digital processing
- Where it may be published: specific platforms or types of platform
- Duration and territory
- How consent may be withdrawn and what happens to what is already published
- Confirmation of adulthood
Why verbal does not work
Not because anyone will lie. Because in a year nobody will remember the wording, and relationships between people change. A document fixes the agreement at the moment both sides agree — precisely for the situation in which agreement stops being obvious.
The right to change one's mind
Good practice provides for withdrawal of consent. It looks like a risk for the photographer but in fact reduces it: someone who knows they can stop publication agrees more readily and more calmly.
Storage
The document is kept as long as the material and in the same place. Consent lost along with an old laptop is legally equivalent to consent that never existed.
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