Consent Forms
This page explains what you must do to get the full and formal consent of people whose stories or photos are used in your case studies, news items or other features.
Data protection
Before using a participant’s (or other person’s) story or image in any ESF related publicity you must get their full consent and ensure they fully understand what giving their consent actually means. The Data Protection Act requires that the person knows:
- who you are
- what their information or photo will be used for
- who else it may be passed to.
The most effective way to ensure that these requirements are met and recorded is to give the participant a consent form to complete and also to clear the written article with them before it is published for the first time.
Check with your manager and marketing or communications colleagues if there is a consent form already in use by your organisation which can be used when producing ESF publicity material.
Remember that you will need to get consent from ESF partners or others that are featured in stories and photographs.
Children
If any children are featured in stories or photographs, ensure you have written consent from their parent or legal guardian. If you use the sample consent form provided in this toolkit (see below), you can annotate this to record children’s details and the parent or guardian’s consent. Whatever form is used, we would encourage you to consult your colleagues responsible for marketing and legal and data protection issues.
Consent form template
If you do not already have a consent form or access to a marketing or communications department, we have produced a sample Consent form template that you can download and adapt for your own use.
If you do use this template please ensure that you check its suitability with the people in your organisation who advise on legal and data protection issues.
- Consent form template (221KB) RTF
Retention of consent forms
Keep completed consent forms securely for at least as long as your project or organisation is using the story or image This may be after you have stopped promoting the story, as it may still be accessible, for example through booklets and newsletters in circulation, plus on-line through e-zines and the internet.
It is good practice to retain the document for as long as other documents being kept for the 2007-2013 programme, as it can be subject to monitoring and audit checks.
It is also good practice to give the participant, and others giving consent, a copy of the completed form before the article is first used.