Crowd Shots and Unknown Faces: How Beeldbank.nl Handles Photos Without Consent

Where the Law Draws the Line for Crowd Photos

After every event a communication team ends up with the same folder: hundreds of photos, many with faces nobody on the team can name. The answer starts with the law, and then Beeldbank.nl turns that answer into a daily workflow. photographing in public space and publishing the pictures is as a rule allowed without asking the people who happen to be in the frame, provided their interests are considered. That covers incidental passers-by. It does not cover posed or identifiable staff, volunteers or participants, and it does not replace the privacy rules of the AVG. Images in which people are recognisable are personal data, so the privacy law applies to them.

That distinction decides what you do next. Someone who walked past your event is in a different position from a named participant who is clearly the subject of the shot. The law decides which faces need consent, and your privacy officer or a lawyer can settle a specific case. What a good photo archive adds is the means to record that decision and to act on it every time an image is used. That is exactly what Beeldbank.nl is built for, and the options below show how.

Portraits and Reasonable Interest: When Publishing Is Still Free

Portraits have their own rule. A portrait that was not made on commission may in principle be published freely, unless the person pictured has a reasonable interest in opposing publication. The starting point is therefore not a flat ban. What counts as a reasonable interest is for a court to decide, so for a recognisable person the safest working habit is to record a clear status in the archive: either a quitclaim, or a visible "no consent" flag. With that habit in place, nobody on the team has to rely on memory when the image is picked months later for a newsletter or a campaign.

Three Ways Beeldbank.nl Handles Unnamed Faces

When you upload event photos, face recognition proposes names for the people it knows. For everyone else, persons not yet named at upload are placed under "onbekende personen" (meldingen menu > personen), and you can name them later by typing a name or selecting an earlier given name and confirming with the tick. That means you can upload a full event within minutes and do the naming afterwards, in your own time.

For a truly unknown person, such as someone in a crowd, you have two clear routes. The first is to discard the face: a truly unknown person can be discarded with the cross, after which that person can no longer be linked to a quitclaim. This keeps the list of unknowns tidy and fits the many faces that are only incidental background.

The second route is to keep the face and make the missing consent visible. An unknown person can be named "onbekend" with quitclaim status "geen toestemming", so every user gets a notification that this person gave no consent when the image is shared or downloaded. The whole organisation is warned automatically, without a separate memo or spreadsheet. If you later learn who the person is, you name them and link a quitclaim, and the warning disappears with the new status.

A closely related situation is described in hiding photos without valid consent, which shows how images with a missing or expired status are kept out of everyday use.

Back of Head, Atmosphere Shots and Skipping Recognition

Not every face in a photo needs a decision. The Onbekenden tab collects faces for which no suggestion exists, and back-of-head or unrecognisable people can be removed from recognition, for which no consent is needed. Clearing them out in a few clicks keeps the list focused on faces that could actually identify someone. Whether a person truly is unrecognisable remains your editorial judgement, and Beeldbank.nl makes that judgement quick to apply.

Some photos are pure atmosphere: a wide shot of the venue, a full hall, a queue at the entrance. A user can choose per upload whether standard face recognition is applied, for example to skip it for atmosphere photos of an event. You can therefore run recognition on portraits and posed group shots, and leave it off for the crowd material. One upload, one setting, and the right workflow for each kind of photo. This is a workflow choice, so it sits alongside your legal assessment and does not replace it.

The Sharing Pop-Up That Prevents Accidental Publication

Picture a colleague who picks an image for the newsletter and does not know that one person in it never gave consent. When sharing, a pop-up shows a warning if not all persons in the images to be shared have given consent. The warning arrives at the exact moment of action, when the share button is pressed, instead of depending on someone remembering an earlier note. The colleague can then choose another image, look for consent, or ask the privacy officer. For a team that shares photos with partners, press and volunteers every week, this is a practical safety net that works for every user, new or experienced.

Personal Use and the Small Circle Exception

The AVG has an exception for images made for yourself or shared only in a very small circle, and no consent is needed there. That is a personal-use rule. An organisation that publishes or manages images professionally, such as a communication team with an event archive, works under the full privacy framework, and the consent tools above are the right way to organise it. A quitclaim form designed for this purpose is described in the quitclaim template checklist for digital consent forms.

A Practical Workflow for Sorting Crowd Shots After an Event

A workflow that works for most communication teams looks like this. Before uploading, decide per upload whether face recognition should run at all, and switch it off for pure atmosphere material. Upload the images. Name the people you know, and take back-of-head and unrecognisable faces out of the recognition. For the strangers in the crowd, discard the face or mark it as "onbekend" with "geen toestemming" so every colleague sees the status. When someone shares or downloads an image, the pop-up reminds them if consent is incomplete.

Different groups call for different forms: staff, volunteers and participants each stand in a different relationship to your organisation, as explained in consent for employees, volunteers and participants. And when a person later asks to be removed, the steps are laid out in withdrawing consent for photos in a step-by-step workflow. Together these pieces give an AVG-conscious organisation a complete, repeatable routine, from the first upload to the last withdrawal.

Type of Face or Shot	Legal Position	Handling in Beeldbank.nl
Incidental passer-by in the background	Publishable as a rule in public space, interests considered	Discard the face with the cross, or name it "onbekend" with "geen toestemming" to warn every user
Recognisable staff member or volunteer	Personal data, so the privacy law applies	Name the person and link a quitclaim; the sharing pop-up guards every share
Back of head or fully obscured	No consent needed	Remove from recognition in the Onbekenden tab
Portrait not made on commission	Publishable in principle unless a reasonable interest opposes it	Record a quitclaim or a "geen toestemming" status so the choice is visible
Wide atmosphere shot of the venue	Depends on whether anyone is recognisable	Choose per upload whether face recognition runs