Image Release Form Guide
Page Contents
How Do We Access a Release Form?
Click Here to download a PDF of the Sanford release form.
When do we obtain permission/release?
- Anytime we are featuring a patient using either images or words.
When do we obtain permission/release from a Sanford employee?
- Generally, we do not need to obtain a permission/release when the stories or images are being used by Sanford for Sanford Marketing purposes.
- Exceptions:
- Anytime we are featuring an employee’s private information (i.e. personal health issues).
- Whenever we are featuring a patient who is a Sanford employee, we treat them as a patient and not as an employee.
- Anytime an image or story will be released to a 3rd party because the employee might not feel comfortable being seen endorsing the third-party’s products or services.
How about releases from an Employee’s family?
- We do need to get a permission/release from everyone who is not directly employed by Sanford.
How do we handle requests from 3rd parties for Sanford Marketing assets?
- Each request will be handled by Sanford’s Legal team on a case-by-case basis. The legal team will draft a license release form that is specific to the request. Currently, Sidney Spaeth and Harrison Hagg are the two attorneys working on these requests.
- Exception:
- If a 3rd-party vendor takes photographs or video for Sanford, Sanford Legal is not required to draft a license request to release to a 3rd party. Technically, Sanford does not own the copyright to an image taken by a 3rd party; however, we should get a permission release form from all employees featured in the image (see above).
Storage of release forms
- Signed release forms should be kept in a safe place. There are no specific parameters from the legal team on how/where to store these documents. We have a large filing cabinet in Sioux Falls located in our Media Relations Team office. Other regions will have their own storage solutions. The most important thing is that we need to be able to produce a form to show if anyone ever challenges that we have obtained permission.
The overall guiding principle is that we need to consider for protection from liability for Sanford, as well as the privacy rights of our patients and employees.