Photography, Filming and Image Consent Policy

Section 1Purpose

Being The Cure photographs and films its activities for its website, social media, funding applications and reporting to funders. Images of children are personal data, and using them without proper consent is both a data protection breach and a safeguarding risk. This policy sets out how consent is obtained and how images are handled.

Section 2Legal and regulatory basis

• The UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. A photograph of an identifiable child is personal data. BTC relies on consent as its lawful basis for using images in publicity and fundraising, and records that consent.
• Code of Fundraising Practice, in effect 1 November 2025, Fundraising Regulator. Rule 5.1.3 requires appropriate permission before taking or publishing photographs of children.
• Out-of-school settings: safeguarding guidance for providers (DfE, last updated 9 February 2026). It expects parental consent to be obtained, with the consent explaining how the images will be used, where they will be used and how long they will be kept, and suggests updating consent annually.

Section 3Consent

• Consent is obtained from a parent or carer before any image of a child is taken for use beyond the activity itself. Consent is renewed annually and can be withdrawn at any time.
• The consent form states separately what each use is — so that a parent may agree to some uses and not others. A single blanket consent is not used.
• The child’s own view is sought and respected, whatever the parent has agreed. A child who does not want to be photographed is not photographed.
• Consent status is checked before any session at which photography will take place, and the person taking images is told which children must not be photographed.
• Withdrawal of consent takes effect for future use immediately. BTC will remove the image from its own website and social media and stop using it in new materials; it will explain honestly that it cannot recall materials already printed or distributed, or content already shared by others.

Section 4Taking and handling images

• Images are taken only on BTC equipment, never on personal phones or cameras, and are transferred to BTC storage and deleted from the device on the same day.
• Children are appropriately dressed, and images focus on the activity rather than on an individual child.
• A child’s full name is not published alongside their image. A first name is used only where consent expressly covers it.
• No image is published that would identify a child’s home, school or routine, and no image is published of a child who is looked after, subject to a child protection plan, or whose whereabouts must be protected, regardless of consent.
• Images are stored on BTC systems with access limited to those who need it, and are deleted in line with the retention schedule.

Section 5Photography by parents, the press and third parties

• Parents and carers may take photographs of their own child at BTC events where BTC has announced that photography is permitted, on the understanding that images including other children are for personal use only and are not posted publicly. This is explained at the start of the event.
• Where a photographer, film-maker, funder or journalist attends, the CEO agrees in advance in writing what may be photographed and how images may be used, the individual is supervised at all times and never left alone with children, and identification is checked. Where the individual will be at BTC activities on more than three days in any 30-day period, the DBS requirements in the Safer Recruitment and DBS Policy apply.
• Where BTC engages a photographer who is connected to a trustee or to the CEO, the Conflicts of Interest Policy applies and the engagement is approved by unconflicted trustees.