In recent years, after being impressed by a few local nonprofit BigORG branches (branches of national BigORGs) and finding that they claim to need/want volunteers (even to the point of desperation if you take their appeals seriously), I’ve approached them to find out about volunteering. As expected, they want to do a background check (almost certainly through the state police - it’s cheap and easy here) and want you to release them of liability for physical injury and all that sort of thing. Neither are a big deal to me. But what IS a big deal is my privacy, and I’ve found a few of these orgs have volunteer waivers such as
“PHOTOGRAPH PERMISSION: I give permission for the BigORG to use, without limitation or obligation, photographs or other media that may include my image or voice to promote or interpret BigORG programs.”
and
I hereby grant and convey unto BigORG2 all right, title and interest in any and all photographs and video/audio/electronic recordings of me, including as to my name, image and voice, made by or on behalf of BigORG2 during my Activities with BigORG2, including, but not limited to, the right to use such materials for any purpose and to any royalties, proceeds or other benefits derived from them. I understand that I will not have any ownership interest in or to such photographs, images and/or recordings, I have not been provided or promised any compensation to me, and I hereby waive any rights, privileges or claims based on any right of publicity, privacy, ownership or any other rights arising, relating to or resulting from the photographs, images and/or recordings.
This is highly infuriating. It’s mindblowing to me that BigORGs think that for the “privilege” of providing free labor in order to assist them in carrying out their charitable “mission”, that volunteers should also allow large quantities of their PII to be captured by the BigORG and exposed to the public in any manner the BigORG may choose, for as long as it may choose, and further, without recourse or compensation of any kind.
In the cases of the two BigORGs I’ve quoted above, I’ve tried to negotiate with them, have asked “how about we just strike that one paragraph, the rest of the waiver is fine, and we’ll be good to go”. The response is a big fat “No” and they show me, a perfectly capable, reliable and generous volunteer, to the door. Only spineless volunteers are needed apparently, ones who will give anything to volunteer at BigORG and won’t make even the slightest pro-privacy waves when doing so.
SmallORGs I’ve volunteered with have not yet reached this level of entitlement, at least not here. Sure they may want to take some pics for social media posts from time to time, but so far have just warned us in advance to get out of the picture (which I have done) and it’s all been fine. I don’t know how long they will remain well-behaved with regard to PII and public disclosure thereof. I’m not paying for the “opportunity” to volunteer, either with cash or with personal info to be used for marketing, and the more these orgs demand it the less I’ll be volunteering.
(I might add that I’m not talking about any kind of community-service mandatory volunteering, though these BigORGs may take that kind of volunteer as well from time to time.)
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This is just so they can take photos and video of volunteers and they don’t have to get releases from each and every person every time someone snaps a photo. Without this waiver, getting photos and video would be a pain in the ass and take up some of every volunteer’s time.
Think about it. You’re asking them to jump through extra hoops every time you’re volunteering. Now, they have to track who signed the waiver and who didn’t. They can’t have staff or volunteers just snap photos whenever they have time. Now, they have to plan every shoot. This costs time and money.
It’s probably really is better for them to just not have people volunteering who don’t want their face on a flyer or to be seen in a commercial or training video.
This is exactly why.
It doesn’t sound like a big deal to me. Some of you will think me naive, and I’ll think you’re paranoid, but that’s just how it is sometimes.
Without this waiver, getting photos and video would be a pain in the ass and take up some of every volunteer’s time.
No. OP stated the solution: If they want to take a photo, all they need to do is to announce that, ask everyone who doesn’t want their picture taken to leave for a moment, wait 10 seconds, and then take the photo. This takes 30 seconds of time. And you’re comparing that to the loss of not having a full worker work for them?
That’s completely unrealistic in most situations and would never take a matter of seconds. Also, it would make every photo stages. All that to cater to one person’s preferences is not reasonable.
(Professional) photographers do exactly that in countries that have decent law around people’s privacy.
Usually they ask before they start shooting. So the result is not staged. And they respect people’s answers, because they could get in trouble otherwise. It’s also usually about faces, so they can still shoot the objectors from other angles.
So - since all this is happening in reality, it is not unrealistic.
Very few countries require consent in public and some that do, like France, make exceptions for art and other non-commercial photos.
But, we’re not talking about some commercial photographer taking photos in public. We’re talking about an NGO who wants to snap photos anytime while people are doing their work. It’s absurd to think they can stop everyone every time to get some snaps.
Trust me it’s not worth having that one or two people working with their special requirements. A blanket waiver saves tons of time and hassle.
we’re not talking about some commercial photographer taking photos in public.
Yeah exactly, why did you even bring it up.
We’re talking about an NGO who wants to snap photos anytime while people are doing their work.
So you think that’s normal (whether one gets paid for the work or not doesn’t come into it). Gotcha.
Yeah, I agree with this. However, I wanted to add in that in many cases, even without the disclaimer, the volunteer company could legally be able to disclose those pictures.
Because in order for something to be commercial, it needs to be promoting a product or an organization. So a big company just posting pictures, saying, look, this is our volunteer work, doesn’t necessarily require any type of disclosure notice.
As long as the volunteer work was being done in a public location(or even a private location with signs), then it’s free game. It’s more of a cover the grey areas in the law policy and remove the extra work if the intent is to promote a product( like you mentioned.)
Furthermore, a lot of nonprofits are financing at least part of their operations through grants. Those grants often require them to prove that they work was completed and done so in compliance with the grant terms. Photographs could be part of the evidence they collect to document how they used the funds.
It requires trust that is not inherently limited in any way. That is authoritarianism. I want nothing to do with any organization that does this. I will not give them any personal information to keep on record either. They have no financial incentive to secure that information and every reason to hide it when they fail to secure that information. Giving anyone the benefit if the doubt and blind trust is begging to become a slave like serf under neo feudalism. It is already happening. You own nothing. You are extorted at every interface in life. A physical part of your person – your digital presence is owned by others with the sole purpose of exploiting and manipulating you in this new age of digital slavery. Consumer protection is a joke now with companies like Delta airlines using your digital slavery with AI in a price fixing scam to extort you for the most you are able to pay. Eventually that will come with some high interest loan for everyone that flies, tying the serfs to the land. It is critical to say hell no to this dystopian nonsense now as normalization is only making it worse.
I say this is a complete over reaction and a photo for the org is not comparable to whatever Delta is doing. You want to hide in a bunker and never show your face in public? Go for it. But, there’s more productive privacy battlefields out there than an NGO wanting to snap photos for for their marketing. Your face is going to be out there, anyway.
Don’t let lawyers be lazy or rule the world with this authoritarianism. Write with better language more in line with modern cultural values instead of ambiguous data theft nonsense. Have higher expectations. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Your only real vote is your choices you are willing to accept. When your choices normalize monsters, you bring monsters upon us all. You matter. You are important. You must make the choice if you are a monster. Your choice is the most important choice in the world. I choose to avoid bringing you monsters because I care about you too.
The larger the organization, the more people start looking like a number in a spreadsheet.
You’d think they’d just get photo waivers from people at events they want to take photos at. Definitely make sure you tell the folks accepting the volunteer applications that you aren’t doing it because of that. It’ll never change otherwise.
Go ahead and sign the waiver, show up in either a hat and t-shirt with every corporate logo you can find on it, or go Cafe press Make* a t-shirt that is absolutely offensive and they’d be insane to take a picture of it for marketing material.
Thanks for calling this out. I agree with every bit - and more. I see similar things happening in various areas, from FOSS development to childcare.
Often with the additional insult of the ORG - well, not really profiting but at least paying others a decent wage. Not me though, I get the warm fuzzy feeling of Doing Something for the Greater Good.
Thankfully I have not experienced this anti-privacy stuff, but several times I noticed that the internal structure of the ORG is built around the free labor they get. Everything else they’re stingy with to the point that it’s not a nice place to be, except us volunteers. We are ubiquitous.
Stick to the smaller ones.
I mean, I get your frustration, but I would imagine many charitable organizations live by promotion of their mission or efforts. Lets say you get your way and they can’t use pictures of you. If you, in the act of providing services for that mission, appear in photographs, they can’t use any of that to promote their efforts.
You are doing a good thing by volunteering. Keep looking for an org that matches what you’re looking for.
