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.)
athairmor@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
BigGovernment@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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.
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
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?
athairmor@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
j4k3@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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.
athairmor@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
Pika@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
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.)