IPTC’s Metadata Monitoring and ICO’s Retention Warnings Force UK Publishers to Revisit Negative Metadata Practices

08 October 2026

UK newsrooms are being pressed to strengthen both their photo metadata and retention controls as the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) expands its monitoring of embedded licensing details and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) reiterates that retained personal data must be regularly reviewed, secured and deleted when no longer needed.

Both the IPTC’s open monitoring and the ICO’s data protection guidance are pushing metadata higher on the agenda, but are pushing for different things: IPTC wants publishers to stop transmitting photos with maximum metadata and minimum censorship, while the ICO wants publishers to adopt new data retention schedules, review cycles, and deletion rules.

However, both the IPTC’s monitoring program and the ICO’s guidance are part of evolving pressure on UK publishers as the gaps in licensing information in photos merge with challenges in managing personal information from archived news reports.

In a bid to preserve the credit, caption, and licensing information embedded in news photos, the IPTC has updated and expanded its Metawatch open monitoring and analysis of publisher adherence to its standardized data.

The IPTC is the global standards body of the news media and says it provides “the technical foundation for the news ecosystem”. This year, the IPTC launched Metawatch, a free, open platform that checks whether news publishers in 122 countries keep credits, captions, and licensing information embedded in their photos. As of October 2026, Metawatch monitors more than 500 publishers worldwide.

One developer who tracks UK publishers says the country ranks 16th out of 34 other countries ranked on how strictly they keep the IPTC’s metadata tags. That low standing, plus the small number of UK publishers who have high compliance, might prove a problem at a time when crawling software is becoming more common and scrutiny around copyright is intensifying.

The October 2026 run found that 321 of 425 monitored news sites kept none of the IPTC fields it scores for any of the sampled images, and a mere 11% of 6,580 photos carried any IPTC metadata.

The field that survived most often is the photographer’s name, appearing on 7.9% of images, while the credit line appears on 5.7% and copyright on 5.6%. IPTC’s PLUS Data Mining field, which indicates licensing, appears on just 0.6% of images.

IPTC says that often metadata loss occurs not in the third-party web delivery layer but in publisher CMSs, image storage systems, or optimization workflows.

„We see some intermediaries trying to preserve metadata but often publishers are stripping metadata as part of putting content in their own CMS, image storage systems, or at upload/resize/resampling points,“ IPTC says.

How UK publishers lose metadata

IPTC’s system found that in the UK we lose metadata in a range of photo workflows.

Publisher systems commonly strip metadata during image handling operations including an image format conversion, image resizing, or file optimization. One DK Imaging study in 2023 estimated that the five most popular photo resizing libraries all failed to save IPTC data in their default settings.

„There are multiple data-sharing paths; multiple places where data could get lost or stripped from the photo. We have identified the main vulnerabilities and we are able to see how publishers and image services handle them,“ reveals one IPTC official involved in the monitoring research.

The IPTC found the UK is one of the most careless in all European countries with metadata:

„The average percentage of the IPTC fields retained is currently at 1.7% with the creditline field being retained the most often (7.5%), however, that comes from only 2 publishers who regularly retain it. Additionally, none of the PLUS fields are retained, so none of these images have permission for AI/image mining.“

Compared internationally, says the IPTC system, the UK should consider making metadata part of the flow of news and preserve it in image workflows.

But installation of the standards might be so problematic that the IPTC is arguing news systems dealing with image rights be exempted from a full GDPR review — replacing that with new ways of handling photo rights.

Why retention rules might help

The ICO guidance, however, is concerned with how data flows. It says the DPA does not impose a time limit on how long personal data may be retained, and that in some cases it may be reasonable to keep certain information indefinitely. However, the data must be regularly reviewed for relevance and legal need, and securely deleted when no longer needed.

Personal identifiable information in archived reports, background research or contacts databases needs to be kept up to date, it says, with reviews of records every 5 or 10 years, or when there are specific causes for a search.

„We've been hearing from publishers that they are concerned about compliance with the DPA, especially those holding newspaper archives. This guidance will help them set up simple processes to make sure they are compliant,“ says Information Commissioner Elisabeth Denham.

Auditors say the ICO’s guidance is particularly crucial for publishers storing personal information for multiple uses, for example, taking media contacts from stories to monitor for a potential data breach. If information is not systematically managed, they say, the DPA reviews are likely to trigger multiple background searches, and in isolation, look unplanned and unstructured.

Pushing publishers to improve metadata practices

The dual guidance from IPTC on metadata and ICO on data retention means publishers are being prodded to look at their image and storage practices.

„Based on the data, most information gets lost either in the workflows image gets through before it’s uploaded or during publishing workflows,“ a leading IPTC official explains.

In its submission to the UK's consultation on AI and copyright, IPTC and the PLUS Coalition argue that opt-out doesn't work for photographers — as it relies on metadata that IMGsheet shows routinely falls out:

„In response to these challenges, [we] argue that copyright that meets future needs requires richer rights identifiers to be embedded into images as part of an open standard.“

And just as the ICO guidance is prompting newsrooms to revisit their personal data, it can prompt image departments to reconsider their need for metadata.

„There are two areas where metadata is embedded in the photo that needs metadata: when the photographer shoots it or when the publisher delivers it. We see more and more companies moving to the first,“ explains the IPTC official.

Those companies are also setting up their own metadata services, explains one editor, and selling bundles of popular signed photos that preserve metadata — rather than doing photo licensing in reverse.