Policies

Complaints Policy

Helen Marshall Limited t/a The People’s Picture (Company No. 11423615) & The People’s Picture, Inc. (EIN: 320663514)

1. Our Commitment

We take complaints seriously and want to resolve them fairly, promptly, and transparently, whoever raises them — a Commissioner, a Contributor, a Self-Serve subscriber, or anyone else interacting with our Services.

2. How to Make a Complaint

2.1 Please put your complaint in writing to support@thepeoplespicture.com, including as much detail as possible: what happened, when, who was involved, and what outcome you’re hoping for.

2.2 If your complaint relates to a specific Project or Commissioner relationship, please also state the Project name or reference where known, to help us locate the relevant details quickly.

3. What Happens Next

3.1 We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days of receipt.

3.2 We will investigate and provide a written response within 28 days of receipt. Where a complaint is complex and requires more time, we will tell you within that 28-day period, explain why, and give you a revised timeframe.

3.3 Our response will explain what we found, what (if anything) we are doing about it, and — where relevant — what you can do if you remain unhappy with the outcome.

4. If You’re Not Satisfied

4.1 If you disagree with our response, you may ask for the matter to be reviewed by a more senior member of our team by replying to say so; we will confirm who is handling the review and respond within a further 28 days.

4.2 Nothing in this policy affects your right to raise a complaint directly with a relevant regulator (for example, the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK, or the Federal Trade Commission or your state attorney general in the US, for data protection matters — see our Privacy Policy for more), or your right to bring a claim through the courts.

5. Complaints About a Commissioner or Another Contributor

5.1 If your complaint is about how a Commissioner or another Contributor has used content or behaved, rather than about us directly, we will still investigate promptly, but please note our ability to act may be limited by the terms of our agreement with that party — see the relevant Contributor Terms and Conditions or Self-Serve CMS Terms for what we can and cannot control.

6. Feedback

6.1 We also welcome general feedback that isn’t a formal complaint — if something could be better, we’d like to know. Feedback of this kind can be sent to the same address and does not need to follow this formal process, though we may treat it as a complaint if it describes a specific problem needing a response.

This policy will be reviewed periodically to ensure it remains accurate and effective.

Your Rights as a Commissioner

Public Project Commissioner Guidelines

Rights, Responsibilities & What You Can (and Can’t) Do

Helen Marshall Limited t/a The People’s Picture

This is a plain-English summary for you as the Commissioner — the client organisation commissioning a project from The People’s Picture. It’s not a legal document itself and doesn’t replace your actual signed agreement with us, but it should answer most of the practical questions that come up along the way. If anything here seems to disagree with your agreement, the agreement wins — just ask us and we’ll clarify.

Who owns what

The People’s Picture owns the finished artwork. The mosaic (or other piece) created for your project is The People’s Picture’s own copyrighted work — think of it like commissioning a photographer for a wedding: you get to use the photos you paid for, but the photographer keeps the copyright.

You get a licence to use it. What you specifically agreed to receive — displaying the artwork, using it in your own materials, putting it on your own website — is set out in your Scope of Work (SoW). If you’re not sure what’s included, check your SoW or ask us.

The People’s Picture can use the finished artwork for its own promotion too — on its own website, in its portfolio, in pitches to future clients, and in press coverage of its work — but cannot sell prints or merchandise of your specific artwork, license it to someone else, or use it for a different client’s campaign, without asking you first. If The People’s Picture wants to do something with your artwork beyond its normal portfolio use, it needs your written OK — and you shouldn’t unreasonably refuse that if there isn’t a good reason to.

Individual contributor photos vs. the finished artwork — what you can use, and how

These are two different things, and the rules are slightly different for each:

• The finished, compiled artwork (the mosaic itself) — use it as set out in your SoW, as above.
• Individual contributor photos (before or outside the compiled mosaic) — you can reshare or use these yourself directly, for example posting a contributor’s submitted photo on your own social media, as long as it’s for promoting or publicising this specific campaign. You can’t use an individual contributor’s photo for something unrelated to this campaign — a different, unconnected marketing purpose — without that contributor’s separate permission.

How consultation and production fit together

These are two separate agreements, not one continuous process — it’s worth understanding the relationship between them:

Stage 1, the Consultation Agreement, is where we work out what your project actually is — meetings, mock-ups, a concept, a budget, and a proposed Scope of Work. You pay a fee for this stage on its own.

Stage 2, the Production Agreement, is the actual creation of your artwork — only entered into if and when you decide to proceed.

Neither of us is obligated to move from Stage 1 to Stage 2. Completing the Consultation stage doesn’t commit you to commissioning the artwork, and it doesn’t commit The People’s Picture to accepting a production engagement it isn’t a good fit for either. If you decide not to proceed after Consultation, that’s a perfectly normal outcome — you keep what you paid for (the mock-ups, the concept work, the proposal), and neither party owes the other anything further. If you do want to proceed, the Consultation stage’s proposal becomes the starting point for your Production Agreement’s Scope of Work.

One practical point: if too much time passes without moving to production, the Consultation Agreement includes an automatic expiry (12 months from the Effective Date, or from the most recent agreed extension) — after that, The People’s Picture is free to reuse the general creative ideas developed for other purposes, though your specific confidential information is always protected regardless.

During and shortly after your project, you (the Commissioner) have first right to sell prints, posters, or merchandise featuring the artwork — this is your campaign, your moment. If you haven’t started doing this within about 12 months of final sign-off, and haven’t told us you plan to, The People’s Picture may start selling it independently through its own shop — but only if the artwork can legally be sold on its own. If the artwork’s central image (the “hero image” you supplied) shows an identifiable person — especially someone well-known — and the permission you obtained from that person was only for this specific project (which is normal and expected), then neither of us can sell the piece independently without going back to that person for further permission. We’ll ask you to confirm this at the start of the project so everyone knows where they stand.

Send us your hero image and branding assets through the CMS or a project email address, not just a shared drive link. We’ll confirm in writing exactly which files we’ve received. If we ever have to fetch a file ourselves from your own asset library, we’ll ask you to confirm in writing that it’s the right, approved, cleared file before we use it — this protects both of us if there’s ever a question later about what was actually agreed. Because your hero image usually isn’t uploaded through the same system contributors use, you’re separately confirming — in the agreement itself, not by clicking “I agree” — that you’ve cleared the rights to it: from the photographer who took it, if that wasn’t you, and from the person in the photo, if they’re identifiable, especially if they’re well known.

If you’d rather we collect all your contributors’ photos through your own platform instead of ours, that’s fine — but bulk downloads and exports are just technically less reliable than our own system, which we built specifically to give a complete, auditable record of everything submitted. That’s nobody’s “fault” — it’s simply a limitation of moving files that way. If a project runs through your own platform instead of ours, you’re accepting that risk by choosing that route, and Form 5A includes a specific acknowledgment of this when it applies.

If a contributor emails us about their photo

Contributors sometimes email support@thepeoplespicture.com asking things like “was my photo used?” or wanting to change their caption. We forward these to you within 2 business days, since you know your own campaign best — from that point, replying is your job, not ours. (This is different from a formal legal privacy request, like someone asking us to erase their data — those follow the process in the data protection section above.)

If you’d rather we handle moderation for you

Normally your own team reviews and approves submissions. If you’d prefer to pay us to do that instead, we can — but you’ll need to give us written guidelines first (what to approve, reject, or flag back to you), and we’ll moderate based on those guidelines. If something goes wrong because our guidelines weren’t clear or complete, that’s on you; if we don’t properly follow guidelines that were clear, that’s on us.

Third-party hosting

Both our CMS and the finished, published interactive mosaic rely on third-party hosting providers, the same way most modern websites do. If one of those providers has an outage, we’ll do what we reasonably can to fix it or work around it, but we can’t guarantee uninterrupted service, and we’re not liable for losses caused by that provider’s own failure.

What contributors have agreed to

Members of the public who submitted photos or stories to your campaign signed up to specific terms too (our Contributor Terms and Conditions, available at thepeoplespicture.com/contributor-terms-conditions). In short:

• They keep the copyright to their own individual photo, but give a licence for it to be used in the mosaic and related project materials.
• They can withdraw their submission at any time before “Database Lock” (the point where the collection phase closes and the artwork starts being built) using an automated link in their confirmation email.
• After Database Lock, they can no longer withdraw their photo from the finished mosaic, but they can still ask for their name and caption to be hidden from any searchable online database — this request is handled within the legal deadline (one month, or up to three months for complex cases), though we usually aim to do it faster.
• If someone under 18 appears in a photo, the person submitting it must be a parent/guardian or have their written permission — and we can ask to see proof of that.

Your responsibilities as a joint controller (the data protection bit, in plain terms)

Because you and The People’s Picture are both legally responsible for how contributor data is handled (this is called being “joint controllers”), there are a few things that are genuinely your job, not ours:

• Your own privacy policy should mention this campaign and explain that photos/data are handled jointly with The People’s Picture.
• You need a reason (a “lawful basis”) for collecting the data — usually this is simply that people are choosing to submit their own photo, which counts as consent.
• Your team does the day-to-day content moderation — you’ll have your own login to review, approve, or remove submissions before the collection closes.
• You’re the one who tells us to “lock” the database (via Form 5A) once your moderation is done — this is the point of no return for automated withdrawals.

What you can and can’t do — quick reference

You can:

• Use the finished artwork exactly as described in your SoW (display it, put it on your website, use it in your own PR, etc.)
• Ask questions or raise a complaint about how contributor data is being handled — you don’t have to go through The People’s Picture first if you’d rather go straight to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
• Request changes to your project timeline or scope (this may involve additional fees — see your SoW).
• Withhold permission for The People’s Picture to use your artwork beyond its normal portfolio use, if you have a genuine reason.

You can’t (without asking first):

• Use the finished artwork for anything beyond what’s in your SoW.
• Recreate, repeat, or exploit The People’s Picture’s mosaic-making process or techniques for another project with a different provider.
• Change or remove The People’s Picture’s credit/attribution on the artwork, if one is agreed.

You’re expected to:

• Complete your moderation review before instructing Database Lock.
• Keep your own privacy notice accurate and up to date for the campaign.
• Let The People’s Picture know promptly if you receive a data protection complaint, request, or regulator enquiry relating to the project, so we can respond together.

What happens if something goes wrong

• If a contributor complains or asks to exercise a data right, contact support@thepeoplespicture.com and we’ll handle it together.
• If something goes wrong that was caused by your side (for example, an incomplete privacy notice, or content that shouldn’t have been approved), you’d be responsible for the consequences of that specifically — not for problems that were The People’s Picture’s fault, and vice versa.
• Either of us can raise a complaint through the internal complaints process described in your agreement before anything more formal happens.

Who to contact

• General project or content questions: your usual The People’s Picture contact.
• Data protection questions or contributor requests: support@thepeoplespicture.com
• Anything you’re not sure about: ask — better to check than guess.

Private Project Commissioner Guidelines

What You Can (and Can’t) Do

Helen Marshall Limited t/a The People’s Picture

This is a plain-English summary for you as a private individual commissioning a personal, confidential artwork from The People’s Picture. It’s not a legal document itself and doesn’t replace your actual signed agreement with us, but it should answer most of the practical questions that come up along the way. If anything here seems to disagree with your agreement, the agreement wins — just ask us and we’ll clarify.

How this is different from a business/campaign project

Your commission is entirely private and confidential — this isn’t a public campaign with many contributors, and it isn’t intended for anyone outside your family or chosen circle to see. Because of this, several things work differently here than they would for a business client:

• We don’t use your piece for our own portfolio, marketing, website, or case studies — ever, under any circumstances. This is a genuine, unconditional commitment, not something we ask your permission for later.
• The finished artwork is never published publicly. Where we host an online version for you to view, it’s password-protected, for your and your family’s viewing only, not a public webpage.

Who owns what

The People’s Picture owns the finished artwork and its copyright, the same as with any commission — but you receive an exclusive licence to the physical piece itself. This means you (and only you) get to keep, display, and enjoy the physical artwork — no one else, including us, can reproduce or exploit it commercially.

You don’t receive a digital file or reproducible copy. The exclusive licence covers the single physical artwork delivered to you, not a digital master file you could print elsewhere. Where we provide a password-protected online viewing option, that’s a viewing service, not a file transfer.

If you want additional physical copies or prints, these can only be produced by us, at an additional fee — we may decline a request if we feel it isn’t appropriate.

How consultation and production fit together

Stage 1, the Consultation Agreement, is where we work out what your project actually is. You pay a fee for this stage on its own.

Stage 2, the Production Agreement, is the actual creation of your artwork — only entered into if and when you decide to proceed.

Neither of us is obligated to move from Stage 1 to Stage 2. If you decide not to proceed after Consultation, you keep what you paid for, and neither party owes the other anything further.

Your photos and privacy

Everyone whose photo appears in your piece (family members, friends, anyone you include) needs to have given appropriate permission for their photo to be used — if any of them are under 18, this means permission from their parent or guardian.

Once your mosaic is compiled, individual photos generally can’t be removed from it — the finished piece is a single integrated artwork, not a collection of separable files. If someone included in your piece later asks for their photo to be removed, we can remove their information from our own systems, but we can’t selectively edit the finished, compiled artwork without effectively remaking it — we’ll only do this in genuinely serious circumstances.

AI tools and third-party services

Your photos will never be uploaded to a general-purpose AI design tool (like the free/personal tier of Canva) where they could be used to train that tool’s AI systems. We only use design tools where AI training is either disabled or contractually excluded for your specific content.

What happens if you’re not being credited as the artist expects, or vice versa

Helen Marshall, as the artist, personally holds the right to be identified as the creator of your piece where it’s practical to do so — though given the private nature of most commissions, this is rarely something that comes up publicly. If you have any specific expectations either way, it’s worth discussing at the Consultation stage.

Late payment and pricing

Quotations are valid for 12 months. If your project is delayed or paused for a long period, we may need to issue a new quotation reflecting current costs before continuing — we’ll always let you know before this happens, not after. Late payment accrues interest, as set out in your agreement.

Questions?

If anything about your specific project isn’t covered here, the fastest way to get an answer is to ask directly — email support@thepeoplespicture.com, and we’ll point you to the relevant part of your agreement or just answer plainly.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Policy

Helen Marshall Limited t/a The People’s Picture
Company Number: 11423615
Last Reviewed: September 2026

1. Our Commitment

The People’s Picture creates artwork that is, by its nature, built from the voices, faces, and stories of many different people. Celebrating that diversity is not incidental to what we do — it is central to it. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for everyone we work with: our staff, our freelancers and sub-contractors, our commissioning clients, and the members of the public who contribute their photos and stories to our projects.

We do not tolerate discrimination, harassment, or victimisation of any kind, and we are committed to treating everyone we work with fairly, with dignity, and with respect.

2. Scope

This policy applies to:

• Helen Marshall Limited’s employees and directors;
• freelancers, consultants, and sub-contractors engaged to work on our projects (including photographers, video editors, graphic designers, and studio assistants);
• commissioning clients and their representatives; and
• members of the public who take part in our projects as Contributors.

3. Our Legal Framework

This policy is underpinned by the Equality Act 2010, which protects individuals from discrimination on the grounds of the following protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. We go beyond the minimum legal requirements wherever we reasonably can.

4. Our Commitments

4.1 Recruitment and Engagement

We select employees, freelancers, and sub-contractors on the basis of merit, skill, and suitability for the work, regardless of any protected characteristic. We aim to advertise opportunities in ways that reach a genuinely diverse pool of candidates, and we review our engagement practices from time to time to identify and remove unnecessary barriers.

4.2 Equal Treatment and Anti-Harassment

Everyone we work with is entitled to a working environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying, or victimisation. We take any complaint of this nature seriously and will investigate it promptly and fairly, in accordance with Section 6 below.

4.3 Inclusive Creative Practice

Our projects invite members of the public to contribute their own photos and stories. We design our collection process — including our CMS, our public-facing communications, and our moderation guidelines — to be as accessible and welcoming as possible to people of all backgrounds, ages, abilities, ethnicities, and communities, and we actively encourage broad participation in the campaigns we run.

4.4 Accessibility

We aim to make our website, our online submission process, and our interactive digital artwork displays accessible to people with disabilities, and we welcome feedback on how we can improve this.

4.5 Suppliers and Sub-contractors

Where practical, we seek to work with a diverse range of suppliers, sub-contractors, and creative collaborators, and we expect the sub-contractors we engage to share our commitment to equality and non-discrimination in their own conduct on our projects.

4.6 Training and Awareness

We ensure that those responsible for moderation, recruitment, or client-facing work are aware of this policy and understand their responsibilities under it.

5. Responsibility for This Policy

Helen Marshall, as Artistic Director of The People’s Picture, has overall responsibility for this policy, for ensuring it is followed in practice, and for reviewing it periodically to keep it up to date and effective.

6. Raising a Concern

Anyone who believes they have experienced or witnessed discrimination, harassment, or a breach of this policy in connection with our work should raise it with us in writing at admin@thepeoplespicture.com. We will treat every concern seriously, investigate it fairly and promptly, and keep it confidential so far as possible and appropriate given the nature of the concern. No one will be treated unfairly for raising a genuine concern in good faith.

7. Monitoring and Review

We will review this policy at least annually, or sooner if there is a relevant change in the law or in our own practices, to ensure it remains effective and up to date.

8. Related Policies

This policy should be read alongside our Ethical Code & ESG Policy Statement (covering our anti-slavery, environmental, and governance commitments) and our Privacy Policy.

This policy is a living document and will evolve as our studio grows. We welcome feedback from anyone we work with on how we can do better.

Safeguarding Procedures (Including Child Protection)

Helen Marshall Limited t/a The People’s Picture (Company No. 11423615) & The People’s Picture, Inc. (EIN: 320663514)

A note on scope: this policy is written to reflect how our business actually operates. We do not run supervised activities, events, or programmes involving direct contact with children — our only connection to minors is that photographs of children may be submitted to us online, always with a parent or guardian’s involvement, as set out in our Contributor Terms and Self-Serve CMS Terms. This policy is proportionate to that reality; it is not a substitute for the more extensive frameworks appropriate to organisations that work directly with children in person.

1. Our Commitment

We take the safety and wellbeing of children seriously in everything connected to our Services. Although we do not have direct, in-person contact with children, we recognise that photographs, captions, and other information involving children pass through our platform, and that a genuine safeguarding concern could in principle arise from what we see or are told.

2. What We Mean by a Safeguarding Concern, in Our Context

2.1 Given how our business works, a safeguarding concern for us would most likely arise from:

• content, a caption, or accompanying information submitted to our CMS that raises concern about a child’s welfare or safety;
• a message, email, or other communication someone sends us that discloses or suggests a child is at risk of harm or abuse; or
• something a member of our team notices while moderating or processing submitted content.

2.2 We are not in a position to investigate or verify a concern ourselves, and it is not our role to do so. Our responsibility is to take any such concern seriously, not dismiss or ignore it, and pass it to the appropriate authority promptly.

3. If You Have a Concern

3.1 If you are a Contributor, Commissioner, Self-Serve subscriber, or anyone else and you have a safeguarding concern connected to our Services, please contact us immediately at support@thepeoplespicture.com, marked “Safeguarding — Urgent” in the subject line.

3.2 If a child or anyone else is in immediate danger, call 999 (UK) or 911 (US) first. Do not wait to contact us before doing so.

3.3 If you are a child and you need help or someone to talk to, you can contact Childline free and confidentially on 0800 1111 (UK) or childline.org.uk.

4. What We Will Do

4.1 On receiving a safeguarding concern, we will:

• treat it seriously and respond without unnecessary delay;
• not attempt to investigate, verify, or resolve the underlying concern ourselves — that is the role of the police, children’s social care, or another appropriate authority, not ours;
• not contact the person the concern is about, or anyone connected to them, in a way that could alert them or place the child at greater risk;
• report the concern to the police, the relevant local authority children’s social care team, or the NSPCC as appropriate, and cooperate fully with any resulting investigation;
• keep a written record of the concern and the action we took, stored securely and shared only with those who need to know; and
• treat the person raising the concern with respect, keep them appropriately informed within the bounds of confidentiality, and never dismiss a concern raised in good faith.

4.2 Within our business, Helen Marshall is responsible for safeguarding decisions and reporting. If your concern relates to Helen Marshall herself, or you feel it has not been taken seriously, please contact us via the general complaints route in our Complaints Policy instead.

5. Existing Protections Already Built Into Our Services

5.1 Our Contributor Terms and Self-Serve CMS Terms already require that content depicting anyone under 18 is submitted with appropriate parental or guardian permission, and that a minor cannot themselves be the person accepting our terms or managing an account.

5.2 Where US users are involved, we comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which imposes additional requirements for content involving children under 13 — see our Privacy Policy and Contributor Terms for detail.

5.3 All content is moderated before being included in a finished Artwork, giving a further opportunity to identify anything of concern.

6. Sources of Support

• Childline (UK, for children): 0800 1111 — childline.org.uk
• NSPCC (UK): 0808 800 5000 — nspcc.org.uk
• Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline (US): 1-800-422-4453 — childhelp.org

This policy will be reviewed periodically, and immediately following any safeguarding incident, to ensure it remains fit for purpose.