Do I have to use face search?

No. Every public gallery can be browsed and bought from without ever uploading a selfie. Face search is a shortcut, not a gate.

How long is my selfie kept?

Up to 180 days from upload, after which the selfie and the facial data derived from it are deleted automatically by a scheduled job, including from the recognition service that performs the matching. You can ask for deletion sooner at any time by writing to info@visualtwins.it.

Is my face compared against other events?

No. A search is scoped to the single gallery you are in. There is no cross-event index of people, and no way to search the platform by name.

Who decides whether a gallery can be searched at all?

The organiser or photographer of that event, and only after confirming that the people photographed were informed that facial recognition may be used, through event terms, on-site signage or a notice at booking. That confirmation is recorded against their account, and without it no faces are indexed for that gallery at all.

Is my face used for advertising or shared with anyone?

No to both. It is used for the search you asked for, and shared only with the recognition service that performs the matching. It is never used to identify you by name, never sold, and never used for marketing.

What if I appear in photos and I do not want to?

Write to info@visualtwins.it. Being findable through search and appearing in a gallery are two separate things, and both can be addressed.

Privacy

Face search and your privacy

Face search on VT Media compares a selfie you upload against the faces detected in one event gallery, so you can find the photos you appear in. Facial data is a special category of personal data under Article 9 of the GDPR, so nothing here happens without your explicit consent, and this page says plainly what is processed, why, and for how long.

What actually happens when you search

You open a gallery and choose to search. Before anything is uploaded you are shown what will be processed and asked to tick an explicit consent box. Then the selfie is sent, faces already detected in that gallery’s photos are compared against it, and the images where the match is confident enough come back as your results.

The threshold is deliberately strict. A stricter threshold means the search sometimes misses a photo of you; a looser one means it starts showing you photos of somebody else. Between those two failures, the second is the one worth avoiding.

The two consents, and why there are two

Yours, as the person searching. Explicit, given at the moment you upload, recorded together with the version of the wording you were shown. It covers the processing of your selfie for that search.

The organiser’s, for the people photographed. Before any face in an event can be indexed, whoever organised or shot that event has to confirm that the people in those photos were informed that facial recognition may be used. This is not a formality in the interface: it is enforced in the database, and a gallery whose organiser has not confirmed it simply has no faces indexed, so no search will ever return anything from it.

Retention and deletion

Biometric data from a search is kept for at most 180 days and then removed by a scheduled job that deletes it for real, at the recognition service as well as in our own records. Deletion on request is faster than that and free: write to info@visualtwins.it.

Deleting biometric data does not delete the photographs themselves, which exist independently of whether anyone ever searched for them. If your concern is the photos rather than the search, say so in the same message and it will be handled as a separate request.

Where the rest of the legal text lives

VT Media is a product of Visual Twins rather than a separate company, so the privacy policy and the terms of service that govern it are published there: Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Cookies set by this site specifically are described in the Cookie Policy.

Questions people ask

Do I have to use face search?: No. Every public gallery can be browsed and bought from without ever uploading a selfie. Face search is a shortcut, not a gate.
How long is my selfie kept?: Up to 180 days from upload, after which the selfie and the facial data derived from it are deleted automatically by a scheduled job, including from the recognition service that performs the matching. You can ask for deletion sooner at any time by writing to info@visualtwins.it.
Is my face compared against other events?: No. A search is scoped to the single gallery you are in. There is no cross-event index of people, and no way to search the platform by name.
Who decides whether a gallery can be searched at all?: The organiser or photographer of that event, and only after confirming that the people photographed were informed that facial recognition may be used, through event terms, on-site signage or a notice at booking. That confirmation is recorded against their account, and without it no faces are indexed for that gallery at all.
Is my face used for advertising or shared with anyone?: No to both. It is used for the search you asked for, and shared only with the recognition service that performs the matching. It is never used to identify you by name, never sold, and never used for marketing.
What if I appear in photos and I do not want to?: Write to info@visualtwins.it. Being findable through search and appearing in a gallery are two separate things, and both can be addressed.

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