Copyright and the people in shot
Who owns the damage photos a restoration company takes?
The copyright usually sits with the firm; the homeowner's privacy sits in the picture whoever owns it.
Ask about my restoration records Tell us where your losses are documented and how many years they span, and we will check it against the 4 documents on this board in a written reply.
A photo is a protected work
17 U.S.C. 101 lists photographs among pictorial, graphic and sculptural works, and section 106 gives the copyright owner the exclusive right to reproduce and distribute them. In the UK, section 4 of the 1988 Act names a photograph as an artistic work, irrespective of artistic quality.
Who is the author
Section 9 of the UK Act defines the author as the person who creates the work, and section 11 gives copyright in an employee's work to the employer unless they agreed otherwise. A subcontractor or a homeowner who sent their own photos is a different case: those photos start out as theirs.
The homeowner is still in the frame
Owning the copyright does not clear the people. The ICO's guidance says personal data must relate to an individual who is identifiable directly or indirectly, and UK GDPR Article 6 says processing is lawful only where one of its bases applies. So the firm strips identifying detail from every image before licensing it, whoever took it.
Which buyers take photos and job records at all is on water damage restoration business for sale.