Assets such as photographs and videos are as integral to a good marketing strategy as the “like” button is to Facebook.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and it is impossible to imagine marketing without images. The Social Media trend is moving away from text-based postings this year towards powerful, emotionally-charged pictures and videos that are used particularly to tell stories. This naturally poses the question for marketers – how to best get hold of good photographic material?
Incidents in which the use of certain photographs have caused major issues are on the increase. Companies like using events to collect expressive image-material. Yet, it is precisely here that caution should be exercised because not every participant wants to appear in photographs.
GDPR and image rights
The huge number of images and videos that are shot and posted every day unavoidably led to the focus on the right to one’s own image. At the very latest since May 2018, when the new data protection regulations came into play, marketers and employers have been forced to deal with image rights. GDPR has become one of the most feared terms in the marketing world.
The eight to one’s own image applies to all of us, regardless of whether the activities are internal company meetings or external customer events. Given the new General Data Protection Regulations, in effect since May 2018, a few aspects need to be considered.
What does GDPR mean, legally speaking?
The GDPR cover:
- The completely or partially automated processing of personal data
- The non-automated processing of personal data that is to be stored in a data system
What does this mean for Marketers?
All pictures and recordings, both digital and analog, are affected by the new data protection regulations. Particular care is called for, since the GDPR regulate “processing” – in other words, collecting, capturing, and saving personal data. When it comes to photos and videos, GDPR is already applicable from the moment photographing and filming begins.
Facial recognition technology makes it easier to work with photos and videos
Digital Asset Management can help you when it comes to right management of your content. Our Facial Recognition integration is a particularly unique solution responding to GDPR. Imagine asking all participants to sign a declaration of consent before attending your event, allowing you to take and process their photographs – after all, you want to be GDPR-compliant. The photographer will do his job and take as many expressive pictures as possible. Since he has no way of knowing at this point who does not want to be photographed, he will naturally capture all participants on photo and video. Later, when the marketing department sorts through the images, they, in turn, will also not be able to tell who did not want their picture taken, not knowing what that person looked like.
This dilemma is easily solved using Digital Asset Management. CELUM offers different facial recognition add-ons, specifically designed to resolve this issue. The Face Recognition by Hoerl automatically scans all images using facial recognition technology. People who do not want their images published are tagged by the system and can then be filtered out automatically. The system thus automatically creates blacklists ensuring that only those photos are published that have been authorized.
The GDPR is therefore not as bad as they appear to be at first sight – that is, if you work with the right tools such as Digital Asset Management, for example. With DAM, you can simply and straightforwardly avoid huge legal stumbling blocks when it comes to The Right to One’s Own Image. The software collates all your data, regardless of size or format, in a single location – a central Content Hub. This central Content Hub enables the distribution of only those images and videos that are truly GDPR-compliant to all communication channels, thus assuring that your corporate image is impeccable.
