Photos of youth members: asking for consent and recording it

The team photo goes up on the club account on Saturday evening and on Sunday morning there is a message underneath it from a mother: why is my daughter on there? Usually some kind of consent was asked, somewhere in September, by somebody else. The answer just does not sit in the place where the person with the camera was standing.

Why images are a separate question

For the ordinary running of a club nobody has to sign anything. Names, dates of birth, team allocation, subscriptions: that belongs to the membership itself and goes ahead without a signature. Images are the exception. A player can say no to a photo without anything changing about his membership, and that is exactly why image material does run on consent. What the rest of the administration runs on is in the GDPR for your sports club; this article is about the one category that falls outside it.

In practice that makes it harder than it sounds, for three reasons. Consent belongs to a purpose, so one yes does not mean yes to everything. It may be withdrawn at any moment, without a reason. And you have to be able to find it back at half past nine on a Saturday morning, when somebody is standing in front of the team with a phone. Almost every problem with photos of youth members sits in that third point, not in the form.

One yes does not exist: ask per type of use

The most common mistake is one line on the sign-up form: consent for image material, yes or no. For a parent that is not a question but a gamble. The difference between a group photo on the club website and a portrait of her daughter with her full name on a public social media account is enormous, and with one tick box she cannot make that difference. Anyone in doubt ticks no — and then you have no team photo either.

So split the question into four, because that is how images are really used:

• Private within the team. An analysis video of the match, a photo in the team environment that only players, parents and coaches see. There is almost never any objection to this, provided it stays private.
• On the club's channels. The website, the club accounts on social media, the newsletter, the screen in the canteen. Public, but with a recognisable sender.
• Outside the club. Regional press, a sponsor who wants to use an image, the federation, recruitment material, a flyer or a banner. Here the club loses control over where the image ends up.
• Images with the name alongside. Ask separately. A photo is a photo; a photo with a full name underneath makes a child findable for anyone who types in that name.

Four tick boxes instead of one costs a parent ten extra seconds and buys you a season of peace. Say at the same time how long the consent runs — the current season is a workable arrangement — and who somebody can go to in order to withdraw it.

Ask once a season, and ask two people

The moment is the first week, together with the rest of the intake: contact details, an emergency number, the few health questions you need in the hall. That complete list is in which player details you really need as a coach, and images are one block in it. Starting later in the season does not work: then you are asking consent for a photo that has already been taken.

For players who are minors, the parent or guardian gives the consent. The age at which a child may legally decide this himself differs by country — under the European regulation that boundary lies somewhere between thirteen and sixteen, and each country fills it in itself. Whatever boundary your country uses: from about twelve, ask the player as well. A child who does not want to be in the photo and has never been asked does not speak up — he simply makes sure he is standing at the back or has just stepped away. Addressing teenagers separately about this fits with how you treat them in general; see coaching teenagers.

Repeat the question every season. Family situations change, and a fifteen-year-old thinks differently about images than the same child at eleven. One line on the form in the first week is enough; you do not need a separate round for it.

A no that nobody knows about is not a no

This is where it almost always goes wrong. Not because no consent was asked, but because the answer is sitting in the membership secretary's inbox while the photo is being taken by a stand-in coach who has never seen that form. A no that is not visible at the moment an image is created does not exist.

So make three demands of the way you record it. One place per team, not three. Visible to everyone who makes or shares images: coach, assistant, team manager, the regular stand-in and whoever fills the club channels. And readable on a phone in the hall, because that is where you are standing when the question comes up. A messaging thread meets none of the three: it scrolls away, and anyone who joins the team later never sees it.

Agree as well what a no means in the hall, because that is where it can get painful. The child takes part as normal: it is about the image, not about the child. For a team photo you take two — one complete for the archive and the parents, one that you publish — or you make sure the child falls outside the published frame. What you never do is put a player aside with an explanation in front of everyone else. A privacy choice made at home then becomes a changing-room story within ten seconds.

The five moments where it goes wrong

1. The team photo at the start of the season. It gets taken in week two, often by a volunteer with a good camera, and at that moment the forms are not in yet. Turn it round: only take the photo once the list is complete, even if that is three weeks later.
2. The parent on the sideline. You cannot forbid parents to film their own child, and you should not want to. What you do agree: images with other children recognisable on them stay inside the team group. Take that along in the conversation you are having anyway about behaviour on the sideline — see parents on the sideline.
3. The analysis video that 'just' goes further. Footage you shoot to look at rotations is private material. The moment somebody cuts a nice rally out of it and posts that, it has become something else. Tell the opponent and the referee in advance that you are filming; how to set such footage up is in filming volleyball.
4. The livestream that is set to public. A stream for grandma and grandad is often visible to the whole world by default and stays up afterwards as a recording. Set it to unlisted or into a private group and delete the recording after the season; the rest is in livestreaming a match with a phone.
5. The tournament or the training day at another club. There the photography is done by an organisation that does not know your list. Before the start, tell the organisers which players may not be published, and tell them again if a photographer turns up that day whom you had not expected.

What you do and do not put with a photo

The image itself is rarely the problem. The information around it is: a photo plus a full name plus a club logo plus the practice evening is a complete profile of a child that you put online yourself. Four habits keep that small:

• First name, or first name with the initial of the surname. Enough for the club, too little for a stranger.
• No times and places in the same post. Not "every Tuesday at 6 p.m. in sports hall X" underneath a photo of a youth team. Separately both are harmless; together they are not.
• No tags and no names in the file. A tag links the image to a personal account and takes it out of your control.
• Play rather than portrait. Three players in action during a rally says more about your team than a cropped close-up of one child, and it is a good deal less personal.

One rule has no exceptions: in changing rooms and showers a camera never goes on, not even for a joke after a win. Make that an agreement at the start of the season instead of hunting for breaches during it.

Watch the images you make almost automatically as well. A results card with your own team photo underneath it — in Koach you can turn a result into a shareable image — is an ordinary publication the moment it lands on a public account. Same list, same question.

Withdrawing, taking down and clearing out

Consent may always be withdrawn and it does not have to be explained. So arrange two things in advance: one address where such a request arrives — not whichever coach happens to be there, because it will sit there — and a period within which the image is gone. A week is generous and achievable. Then do go past every place the image is: the site, two or three social accounts, last month's newsletter and the screen in the canteen. Skipping one of them produces a second and angrier message.

And be honest about what you cannot do: a photo that stood public for three weeks has been downloaded, forwarded and sometimes shared by others. Removing it at the source is all you can do. That is exactly the argument for being restrained at the front end — an image that was never there does not have to be retrieved.

Finally, clear out without anybody asking you to. A club archive with team photos per season is fine and belongs to the history of a club. A folder with three hundred action shots of youth members who stopped two years ago serves no purpose any more. Put one clear-out moment a year in the club calendar, and record the agreements about images in the same place as the rest of your way of working: in the club handbook, so the next coach finds them instead of inventing them again.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

Club membership software: five questions that make the choice for you Volleyball club venue schedule: your fixed weekly slots in one place Recording committees at a sports club: the club behind the teams

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