Employee Image Rights: What Rules Must Employers Follow?
16 July 2026 · 3 min reading time
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Team photos on LinkedIn, employee portraits on a company website, videos filmed during a seminar: employees regularly appear in content published by their employer. However, being an employee does not mean giving up your image rights.
Before publishing a photo or video in which an employee can be identified, the company must make sure it has obtained their consent. This image rights authorisation should specify where the image will be published, for how long and for what purpose.
What are an employee’s image rights?
Employee image rights allow employees to retain control over how their likeness is used. An employment contract does not automatically give an employer the right to photograph an employee or freely use their image.
Protection applies whenever the person can be identified. The face is the most obvious element, but not the only one. An employee may also be recognisable from their silhouette, voice, a tattoo, a uniform or the context in which the image was taken.
Image rights do not only concern the final publication. They also cover the taking of the photo or video, its storage, reproduction and use.
Agreeing to pose does not give the company free rein. An employee may accept a souvenir photo during a company seminar without wanting to see it later on the employer’s website or in a sponsored LinkedIn campaign.
Can an employer use an employee’s image without their consent?
In principle, the employer must obtain the employee’s consent before any use of an identifiable employee’s image.
This authorisation is particularly necessary when the photo is intended for the company website, a recruitment page, a commercial brochure, a poster, a social media post or a corporate video. The same applies when the image is used to promote the employer brand or present the company to clients and partners.
The context in which the photo was taken does not change this rule. An image taken during working hours, on company premises or at a professional event does not automatically belong to the employer.
The fact that the publication is not directly commercial does not remove the employee’s image rights either. An employee photo used without authorisation may still raise issues even when it is only intended to showcase the company’s atmosphere or culture.
Does the employee need to authorise the photo itself or only its publication?
Ideally, the company should inform the employee before the photo session and explain how the image is intended to be used.
Problems often arise when an employee agrees to be photographed without knowing what the employer plans to do with the image. A photo taken during a team lunch cannot automatically be reused several months later in an advertising campaign.
The employee’s consent should therefore cover both the taking of the image and its future use.
How should an employer obtain the employee’s authorisation?
A written agreement from the employee remains the safest option. It allows the employer to prove that the employee accepted the use of their image and to check exactly what had been agreed.
An oral agreement is not necessarily invalid, but it is much harder to prove in the event of a dispute. It also creates uncertainty about the media, duration and purposes that were discussed.
What should an image rights authorisation include?
The document should allow the employee to understand exactly what they are agreeing to. It should identify the photos or videos concerned, the purpose of the use, the media on which the image may appear and the people who may have access to it.
The authorisation should also specify the publication period, the geographical area concerned and any editing, cropping or adaptation that may be carried out. It is also useful to state whether the use is paid or unpaid and what will happen to the images after the employee leaves the company.
An authorisation signed for an internal company directory does not necessarily allow the employer to publish the portrait on Instagram. Likewise, consent given for a specific recruitment campaign does not automatically cover all future company communications.
The broader the authorisation, the more likely it is to be challenged.
Can the authorisation be included in the employment contract?
An image rights clause may be included in the employment contract, an amendment or a separate document.
The format matters less than the content. A standard sentence authorising the company to use the employee’s image “on all media, for any purpose and without time limit” remains too broad.
The authorisation should not be hidden among the other clauses of the contract. The employee should be able to clearly identify the intended uses and understand the scope of their commitment.
Can an employee refuse to be photographed?
An employee may exercise their right to refuse when a photo session is intended for the company’s communication or promotional activities.
They may not want to appear on the employer’s website, in a LinkedIn post, a recruitment video, a poster or a commercial brochure. This refusal to be photographed at work does not, by itself, constitute misconduct.
The company must also ensure that consent is genuinely freely given. In an employment relationship, some employees may feel that they have no real choice. It is therefore preferable to clearly state that participation is optional when the image is not necessary for the role.
Some situations, however, meet a specific professional need. A photo may, for example, be used to create an access badge for security reasons. Its use must then remain limited to that purpose. The employer cannot later reuse the badge photo in a communication campaign.
Can an employee be required to provide a photo for the company directory?
The fact that a document is used internally does not mean that the employer can freely include employee photos.
An employee may refuse to have their portrait appear in an internal directory, a company organisation chart, an intranet profile or a collaborative tool.
The employee’s name, position and professional contact details may be necessary for the company to operate. A photograph, however, is not always essential.
It is therefore important to distinguish between information required for work organisation and information that remains optional.
Can an employer publish an employee’s photo on social media?
Social media gives an image a much wider reach than an internal company document. The authorisation should therefore clearly mention this type of publication.
This applies to team photos on LinkedIn, seminar pictures posted on Instagram, employee portraits used alongside testimonials, behind-the-scenes videos, sponsored campaigns and content published on TikTok.
Not all uses have the same reach. A standard organic post is not equivalent to paid advertising shown to thousands of people. If the employer plans to sponsor content, this should be made clear from the outset.
Employees should also be informed that an employee photo published on social media may be copied, shared or reused by third parties. The company does not always retain full control over how the image circulates once it has been posted online.
Is authorisation required for a group photo?
The fact that a photo shows several people does not remove individual image rights.
For a company group photo intended for a website or recruitment campaign, obtaining individual consent from each recognisable employee remains the safest approach.
The situation may be different when a person appears in the background of a general event photo without being singled out. The answer then depends on the context, the person’s place in the image and the intended use.
Before publishing a group photo, the employer should consider whether the employees are recognisable, whether they are the main subject of the photo and whether the publication has an informative or promotional purpose. The chosen medium and the context in which the photo was taken should also be taken into account.
Informing participants that a photographer will be present at a seminar is useful. However, this does not always replace an individual image rights authorisation when employees appear clearly in the foreground.
Can an employee request the removal of their image?
When a photo has been published without authorisation or used beyond what had been agreed, the employee may request its removal.
In practice, much depends on the medium. Removing a portrait from a website is relatively straightforward. Removing a photo from hundreds of brochures that have already been printed is much more difficult.
Employers therefore have an interest in anticipating this issue by specifying the campaign duration, the online publication period, the quantity of printed materials, the conditions for renewing the authorisation and the procedure to follow if the employee requests removal.
The withdrawal of image rights consent does not necessarily mean that all materials already distributed can disappear immediately. This is precisely why the authorisation should be clear from the outset.
Can an employer continue using an employee’s image after they leave the company?
Leaving the company does not necessarily bring all uses of the employee’s image to an automatic end. The first step is to check what the signed authorisation provides.
However, some situations quickly become problematic. This is particularly true when a former employee still appears on the “Our Team” page, in a recruitment advertisement, in a commercial presentation or in a corporate video. Keeping their portrait online may suggest that they still work for the company.
Image rights after leaving the company therefore depend in particular on the duration and scope of the authorisation granted. A clause with no clear expiry date creates a greater risk of dispute.
It is preferable to specify a defined period of use from the outset and to set out what happens when the employment contract ends.
The company may also include a review of photos and videos in its offboarding process. This makes it easier to identify content that should be removed, replaced or updated.
Is an employee photograph considered personal data?
When a photograph makes it possible to identify a person, it constitutes personal data.
Image rights and the GDPR may therefore apply at the same time, although they are not the same legal concept.
Image rights concern a person’s likeness and the conditions under which it may be used. The GDPR, on the other hand, governs the collection, storage, security and use of personal data.
The employer must inform the employee about the purpose of the processing, the legal basis used, the people who will have access to the images and how long they will be kept. The employee must also be informed of their rights and how to exercise them.
A photo collected to create an access badge or an internal directory should not be reused for another project without first checking whether that new use is permitted.
Image rights and workplace video surveillance: what is the difference?
Workplace video surveillance does not follow exactly the same rules as corporate communication.
An employer may install cameras when pursuing a legitimate objective, for example to protect people, premises or equipment. The system must nevertheless be necessary and proportionate.
Employees must be informed of the presence of the cameras, their purpose and how the footage will be used.
A camera installed at the entrance to a building for security reasons cannot later be used to obtain footage for a promotional video. A security purpose does not automatically cover a communication use.
What are the risks for an employer using an image without authorisation?
An employee may request the removal of a photo or video published without their consent. They may also bring a claim in order to obtain compensation.
The employer may be required to remove the content and pay damages. A complaint relating to the protection of personal data may also be made. Beyond the legal risk, inappropriate use of employee images can damage workplace relations and harm the company’s reputation.
The photo does not need to be humiliating or degrading for a dispute to arise. An unauthorised commercial or promotional use may be enough.
Before publishing any image, the company should therefore ask three simple questions: has the employee given their consent, does the authorisation actually cover the medium being used and is the agreed period of use still valid?
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