• Sign in Join CharityConnect
  • About us
  • Terms of Use
  • Community standards policy
  • Privacy Policy

Powered by

Back

The charity network that helps you shine.

Join 18,880 professionals and find your community in the UK charity sector.

Join CharityConnect

GDPR & Social Media

Social Media

Caitlin McCullough Head of Communications & Public Fundraising at Glitch Posted 6 years ago

CharityConnect: GDPR & Social Media
I wonder if anyone else has encountered concerns in their charity that re-tweeting/re-sharing images of people on social media could be a breach of the new GDPR if you cannot confirm that they have given informed consent?
 
It's a baffling one for me as it's already on a public, global platform. That said, I can understand concerns that if a charity with a reach of 10k followers shares an image it's a bit different to an individual with 500 followers...
 
I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts/experience thus far! Is it all blown out of proportion? Or is this really the legal framework for data we should be working with online?
Report
1 Like
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Whatsapp

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

No responses yet. Be the first to reply!

5 responses

Load more responses
A CharityConnect User

A CharityConnect User Staff PANEL

at 6 years ago

Close popup

A CharityConnect User's badges

 
I agree that consent to re-tweet or share someone's post isn't necessary. As to the idea that the social media platform is the controller for any personal data posted on the site, a European Court of Justice decision back in June this year suggested it's not that simple... The case was Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein v Wirtschaftsakademie Schleswig-Holstein GmbH (catchy!) and the court held that an administrator of a fan page on Facebook was a controller jointly responsible with Facebook Ireland for the processing of that data. Until we get further guidance or case law on this, I think it's safest for organisations to think about their social media pages as extensions of their websites/other online marketing platforms for data protection purposes. 
 

1 Likes
Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

See previous comments
Tom Rottinghuis

Tom Rottinghuis Staff PANEL

DPO at a large UK charity 6 years ago

Close popup

Tom Rottinghuis's badges

Helper’s Badge Level One
Level 1 of 5
This badge is awarded to members who have had a comment marked as Helpful
Helper’s Badge Level Two
Level 2 of 5
This badge is awarded to members who have had 5 comments marked as Helpful
Helper’s Badge Level Three
Level 3 of 5
This badge is awarded to members who have had 10 comments marked as Helpful

Re-tweeting/re-sharing would normal not give you any real control of the data and hence it would not normally be a GDPR issue, don't go getting consent for social media shares! However, do approach this from a safeguarding perspective, a teenager who shared something with their 20 followers might not be prepared for the trolls that respond on their post once you share it with your 100k followers!

Also, if you want to re-use somebody's social media post for one of your own posts, rather than retweeting it you would require consent and retweeting something that is defamatory, untrue and cannot be defended can certainly open the door to legal action against the re-tweeter. 

2 Likes
Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

See previous comments
Peter Neal

Peter Neal Staff PANEL

Operations Manager at Tees Valley Arts 6 years ago

Close popup

Peter Neal's badges

No. As Yessica Apolo said the original post would be covered by the social media platforms privacy policy so if you can see it, you can share it. It is definitely all blown out of proportion.

0 Likes
Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

See previous comments
A CharityConnect User

A CharityConnect User Staff PANEL

at 6 years ago

Close popup

A CharityConnect User's badges

We had a conundrum a few weeks back with a photo that came via Facebook message about a fundraising from a young ladies mum... it got murky as there were other children involved in the photo, so we had to, via the school concerned make sure all were happy before we could use it. It was an additional check and it led to some interesting discussions internally about how far we need to go to protect ourselves. As a rule, if minors are involved, probably safer not to share without the written consent forms. If adults, then if they have sent you the photo and its of them... then they're giving you consent.
Twitter is different as if a person protects their tweets, they have to OK you to follow them... which means they are pretty much, under Twitter's terms allowing you to retweet them,. For Facebook profiles... if the post is set to "public" then they can always change that setting later, and your "share" would disappear/go to a broken link.

1 Likes
Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

See previous comments
A CharityConnect User

A CharityConnect User Staff PANEL

at 6 years ago

Close popup

A CharityConnect User's badges

Hi Caitlin,

I haven't come across this but on Twitter your charity's profile and any other user profile are just that, users of the platform, regardless of the followers you have. If the image/tweet you re-tweeted came from a public profile (which I assume is the case since you can't RT private profiles), then the initial tweet would be subject to Twitter's privacy policy, not your charity's. Therefore, I imagine that if they have a problem with you having re-tweeted something, it doesn't have anything to do with GDPR. If we had to ask for informed consent to re-tweet, Twitter wouldn't exist.

Other social media platforms might be different. On Facebook, for example, it is probably not a good idea to share posts from a personal timeline to a page. But again, if the content is public, in theory, you are protected if you share it.
Etiquette: I suppose the question is whether you should be asking for permission to re-share/re-tweet certain things. I think if a post/image seems quite personal, I might ask the user if it's okay to re-share it.
 

3 Likes
Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

Please enter your comment. Limit: 4000 characters.

Optional. An image can be added at the top of the comment. Images must be in PNG, GIF or JPG format. Unsplash.com is a great source for royalty free and high quality photos.

See previous comments
See new comments

Related posts

What do you include on your contact sign-up?

Cherry Teearu

Marketing & Comms

How should we use a donation button on our website?

Catherine Fenwick

Marketing & Comms

Talks Policy

Deb Clarke

Marketing & Comms

Images to use without copyright fees

Khalida Khan

Marketing & Comms

New website accessibility

Liz Waters

Marketing & Comms

  • About us
  • Privacy
  • Community standards policy
  • Terms
  • Advertise with us

Powered by

© 2025 JobLadder

Report an issue

Help us keep CharityConnect safe and friendly by reporting spam or abusive behaviour.

What's the issue with this content?

How is this content abusive or harmful?

Report an abusive behaviour

Likes

Show More

Likes

Show More

Sign in

Like this? You'll love what we've got inside. Sign in to like this post and see more

Forgot password

Don't have an account? Join CharityConnect today.

Post

Post has been deleted successfully

Likes

Show More