What if a guest uploads something that does not belong?

How often does this really happen?

Far less often than the question suggests, and almost never in the form people fear. What comes in on an average evening is mostly dull: the same table forty times, a blurred shot of the dance floor, three failed selfies in a row and one photo of somebody's shoe. That is not a problem, that is noise.

Where it does go wrong is one of three things. Somebody photographs a colleague or a relative in a pose that person would not have chosen. Somebody puts in a joke that works inside their own little group and nowhere else. Or somebody accidentally uploads twenty photos from a completely different evening, which happens more often than you would think and is sometimes more awkward than the first two.

So the question is not whether you need an answer to this. It is which of the two settings suits your crowd, because they both cost you something.

Moderation on or off: which do you pick?

Moderation is off by default, because that is the nicer setting at most parties. Guests see their own photo appear, the slideshow on the projector keeps running without anybody having to do anything, and the evening stays fun for the organiser. The price is that an unfortunate photo sits there for a while before you take it down.

Turn moderation on and nothing appears in the album until you have approved it. To guests that feels like a delay: they upload and visibly nothing happens. You can head that off by saying so, on the card or when the evening opens. What you gain is never having to explain why something was briefly visible.

In practice the line runs between private and professional. Couples usually leave moderation off, because they want to see the photos during the evening and little can go wrong among their guests. At a company party, a club or a school the switch nearly always goes on, and that is usually also the reason somebody higher up signs off on it.

There is something in there that has to go. What do you do?

1. 01Take it down before you do anything elseDo not consult anybody first and do not go looking for whoever posted it first. Every minute the photo stays up, somebody else sees it. Deleted files stay in the bin for fourteen days, so you can still change your mind.
2. 02Check whether it stops at one photoIt usually comes out of one upload by one person, with four similar ones underneath it. Scroll through that run now rather than having to look again tomorrow.
3. 03Turn moderation on for the rest of the eveningIf something got through once, the odds are that more is coming from the same corner. The switch costs you half an hour and takes the tension out of the rest of the evening.
4. 04Talk to the person in the photo, not to the groupA message to the whole group turns a small awkwardness into an event, and everybody starts hunting for what is missing. One text to whoever was in it is enough, and that is usually the end of it.

What do you say to the person whose photo you removed?

Usually nothing, and that is not laziness. The person who posted it almost always meant well, and a message explaining that their contribution has been deleted turns a casual act into something they feel bad about. In an album of hundreds of photos, hardly anybody notices that one is missing. Taking it down without a conversation is therefore the kindest route in most cases, not the cowardly one.

There are two exceptions. The first is when they are going to notice, because they ask about it themselves or because it was their only upload. Then say what you did and why, in one sentence, without turning it into a matter of principle. Something like: I took that one of Marieke out, she did not come out well in it. Almost everyone says they had not thought about it, and that is that.

The second exception is when it is a pattern rather than a coincidence. Then the conversation is not about the photo but about the behaviour, and that does not belong in an app but with a manager. That is no longer a photo problem.

What you do not do in either case is leave the photo up to keep the mood. The person in it had no choice, and the person who posted it did.

And what if somebody asks to be removed?

That is a different request from an unfortunate photo, and it weighs more. Somebody who is in a photo and does not want to be has a right to that, and the Dutch DPA (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) writes that withdrawing consent has to be as easy as giving it. In practice: one name or address people can go to, and no form.

There is a catch that often gets missed. According to the Dutch DPA, a request like that covers not only the place where the photo is published but your own photo archive as well. If the album sits in one place, that is a matter of deleting it. If it has already been downloaded and passed around three times, it becomes a search. That is one of the better arguments for keeping everything in one album. The full explanation with the sources is in what you may do with photos of employees, and for clubs and teams in what a club may do with photos of members.