How Often Do You Need Consent From Participants?

One of the most common questions we get is: Do we need a new consent form every time we film someone? The short answer is: not always, but most often.

When you’re producing content that includes identifiable people, your legal foundation depends on how and why you’re capturing that footage. And under GDPR (and similar privacy laws in other regions), consent must be specific — tied to a clearly defined purpose.

Quick Rule of thumb: new project = new consent needed

If a participant is involved in a brand-new filming project with a different goal, scope, or message, it’s essential to collect fresh consent — or renew their model contract, if that’s your legal basis.

A few real-world examples:

• Same project, multiple days:
• Say you’re filming over two days, and the same person is involved both days. If the project purpose hasn’t changed, one consent form is enough, you can simply onboard the participant on Day 1.
• New campaign or project:
• If you film that same person a few months later for a new campaign — even if it’s a similar topic a new consent form or model contract should be collected. Why? Because the purpose of processing the footage has changed.

Why this matters under GDPR

Under GDPR, consent must be:

• Freely given
• Specific to the purpose
• Time-limited (with defined storage duration)
• Documented and traceable

This means relying on a blanket, multi-year consent form isn’t enough. Especially if you’re planning to recycle content across different campaigns. Having a clear, project-specific consent trail not only protects your company, it makes future reuse much easier.

Built-in consent tracking with Mediacloud.ai

Our platform helps you manage this with ease:

• See which participants have already signed up for the current project
• Track expiry dates of each digital consent
• Store individual video release form templates and model contract templates for every campaign
• Maintain compliance across a privacy-first content workflow