On 1 June 2011 16:17, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
This week, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees unanimously passed a resolution addressing the issue of controversial content on the projects. The Board also unanimously passed a resolution addressing images of identifiable, living people on the projects. The resolutions are posted at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Images_of_identifiable_people
I think the more important part of this announcement is the resolution on images of identifiable people, and it is this section that requires considerably more self-examination on the part of every project that hosts or uses images.
Commons has a guideline on the subject, found here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people
This is a starting point for the discussion. In particular, I think that the Board in its resolution is looking specifically at the uploading of images by third party editors/users who are not the subject of the image, nor its creator, nor the person who has claimed the right to it. (The most obvious example is images from Flickr, but there are many other "resource" sites.) This, of course, does not exempt users who upload images that they create or own. The resolution and (where applicable) guidelines do place an important onus on both the uploader and the project to ensure that personality rights have been appropriately confirmed. The resolution places this obligation on a near-equal footing to ensuring that copyright status is appropriate to the project.
It may also be worth noting that the term "identifiable" is used. Unusual physical structures, jewelry, tattoos or other features may render the subject of an image identifiable even if the facial features are not included in the image.
It should probably be emphasized that this would apply equally to projects that host "fair use" or other images, and is not simply an expectation on Commons.
Risker/Anne