Beeldbank.nl: Consent Management as a Selection Criterion

Why Recognisable People in Photos Create a Legal Duty

A photo in which someone can be recognised is not just a picture. Images in which people are recognisable are personal data, so privacy law applies. Publishing images requires permission from the people shown, given freely, with the purpose made clear in advance.

Two limits are worth knowing. The KVK page is written for associations and foundations, not specifically for image banks or companies, and it presents consent as the route for publication without discussing other legal bases. Nothing in this article is legal advice. Treat it as a way to decide what your DAM should help you do, and take the legal questions to your own adviser or data protection officer.

For a communication team the consequence is practical. Permission is not a one-time event at the photo shoot; it needs to be known, findable and current at the moment someone wants to publish an image, possibly years later.

Why a Spreadsheet Falls Short as a Consent Register

Many teams keep permissions in a separate list or in a folder of signed forms. The list may be accurate on the day it is made. The difficulty is that it lives apart from the pictures. A designer who is searching for an image does not open the list first, and nobody is reminded when a permission runs out.

The question to ask any vendor is therefore whether permission status is visible where the work happens: while someone browses and searches for images. If a colleague has to leave the tool to find out, the check will sooner or later be skipped. That is the strongest argument for treating consent as a selection criterion rather than as an administrative extra.

What Beeldbank.nl States About Quitclaims, Linking and Expiry

Beeldbank.nl states that it offers digital consent forms (quitclaims) per person with monitoring of the expiry date. It also states that it automatically links the person in a photo to his or her quitclaim, so users know whether the image may be published.

On expiry, Beeldbank.nl says that when a quitclaim expires, the user sees this immediately. It also says that images without valid consent can be hidden automatically, and that expiry dates are configurable. The validity of a consent form can be unlimited or set in months, and an automatic reminder can be sent before the consent expires, after which the person can be re-invited or the consent left to expire.

These statements give you concrete things to test. Ask for a demonstration with an example of your own: a person with a valid form, a person whose form has expired and a person who has no form at all. Look at what a colleague sees in each case.

Withdrawal of Consent and What the System Cannot Do for You

Consent can be withdrawn. GDPR Article 7(3) gives the person the right to withdraw consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of earlier processing, and requires that withdrawing is as easy as giving consent. Withdrawal is not retroactive for processing already done, and the article does not itself prescribe how published copies must be removed.

In Beeldbank.nl, consent can be withdrawn at any time: the person is set to "geen toestemming" (no consent) and images in which the person is recognisable are no longer used. That covers the images in the archive. It does not tell you what to do about a copy that was already placed on a website, in a brochure or on social media. Agree inside your organisation who finds and removes those copies, and how quickly.

The same applies to the way permission is asked. A tool can store a form and track a date, but it cannot decide whether the permission was freely given or whether the stated purpose was clear. That remains the responsibility of your organisation.

Questions to Put to Every Vendor About Consent

Whichever vendors are on your shortlist, put the same questions to each of them and ask for the answers in writing. Does the system store a permission per person? Can it link a person to the images in which he or she appears, and how reliable is that link on your own photos? What happens to an image when the permission expires, and who can still see or download it?

Ask also about purposes. If a person has agreed to use in one setting only, can the system record that, or does it only know whether permission exists? Ask how withdrawal is handled and who in your organisation is allowed to do it. Discuss these details during your Beeldbank.nl demo so you understand exactly how the tool works for your team.

Consent Features to Test in a Pilot

Running a Pilot With Real Situations From Your Team

Do not judge consent features on a sales slide. Build a small pilot from situations your team actually meets: a colleague who has left, a speaker at an event, a partner organisation, a person who asks to be removed. For each, check what a colleague sees when searching, and what the administrator must do.

Write the results down. If a scenario needs a manual workaround, note who would do it and how often it would come up. A feature that works only when one person remembers to do something is not the same as a feature that works.

Building Your Consent Requirement Into a Broader Checklist

Consent is one criterion among several in choosing a DAM system. As you build your shortlist, understand what each tool costs and what it requires to get started. What Beeldbank.nl Costs breaks down pricing for you. Before you commit, Try Beeldbank.nl Before You Decide with a pilot using your own photos and consent scenarios.

If you are still weighing whether DAM software is right for your organisation at all, Does an Organisation of 200 Employees Need DAM Software? offers a framework. And if you need to clarify the terminology you hear in vendor conversations, Beeldbank vs Mediabank vs DAM defines the terms.

If your team regularly publishes photos of identifiable people, put consent on the checklist as a requirement with its own test, and keep legal advice alongside it.