Commons:Photographs of identifiable people/checklist
 | If you're here, you're thinking of uploading an image and want to consider Commons' guideline on photographs of identifiable people ("COM:PEOPLE"). Thank you! Please follow the questions below. |
1. Identifiable living people?
Are there any identifiable people in the photograph? If yes, are those people still alive?
- For high-resolution photographs, zooming in can allow identification
- Just because faces are not visible (or blurred or pixellated) does not necessarily mean people are unidentifiable. Textual information, uploader name, image source linking to information elsewhere etc, can all make an apparently unidentifiable person identifiable.
NO (no identifiable living people in the photo)
you can stop reading this guide: COM:PEOPLE only applies to identifiable living people. (However, where the photograph shows the subject in a negative light and the subject is recently deceased you may consider some of the moral issues of COM:PEOPLE and decide whether uploading is the right thing to do.)
YES
- continue reading.
2. Consent received?
Do you have the subject's consent to publish the photograph under a Commons-compatible free license (meaning it can be used by anyone for any purpose)?
YES (you have the subject's consent to publish)
- all is well. Document this permission on the file description page using {{Consent}}. If evidence of consent is available online, provide links; you can also use OTRS to email evidence. Emailing or attaching verification of consent; however, is not required.
NO
- continue reading.
3. Consent required?
3a Public place?
Was the picture taken in a public place?
NO
then you should not upload the picture. Subject consent is legally almost always required to publish photographs taken in a non-public (i.e. private) place, and in any case this is Commons policy.
YES
- continue reading.
3b Consent required for a public place?
Do you need the subject's consent to publish the photograph in the country the photograph was taken if taken in a public place?
- For the United States, the answer is NO. For many other countries, the answer is "it depends". See Commons:Country specific consent requirements.
NO (consent is not required)
- then you can upload. Feel free to use {{Consent}} or the
|permissionparameter of {{Information}} to clarify this.
YES (consent is required)
- then you can't upload.
Help
- For help on making decisions in this area, please go to the Commons:Help Desk.