Request a correction or removal

Everything in the Pride History Project was shared by someone in the community. Sometimes the person who shared it was not the only person in it.

If you are pictured, named, or described in something in this archive, or you spot something that is wrong, you can ask us to correct it or take it down. You do not need to be the person who submitted it. You do not need to explain why. You do not need to be a member of anything.

Who this page is for

Use this page if you are:

• A person who appears in a photo, video, or recording in the archive.
• A person named or described in a document, caption, or story.
• A family member or next of kin acting for someone who has died.
• Someone acting with the permission of a person in the material, for example a carer or a support worker.
• An organisation named in material about it.
• The copyright owner of material someone else submitted.
• Anyone who has spotted a factual error, a wrong name, a wrong date, or a caption that gets it wrong.

If you submitted the item yourself, you can also use the withdrawal link in your approval email, which is faster. This page works too.

What you can ask for

You can ask us to:

• Remove the item completely so it is no longer published.
• Remove or blur you specifically while the rest of the item stays up, for example cropping a group photo.
• Remove your name but keep the image, or the reverse.
• Correct a detail, such as a name, a date, a place, or an event description.
• Change how you are credited, including removing a credit entirely.
• Add context where the record is technically accurate but misleading without it.

Tell us which of these you want, if you know. If you are not sure, describe the problem and we will talk it through with you.

How to make a request

Email hello@brisbanepride.org.au with the subject line “Correction or removal request”.

Please include, as much as you can:

1. The link to the item. If you arrived here by clicking the link at the bottom of an item, the item is already identified in the address bar. Copy and paste the whole address into your email.
2. What the problem is. For example “I am the person on the left and I did not know this photo was going to be published”, or “the date is wrong, this was 1987 not 1983”.
3. What you would like us to do. Remove it, crop it, correct it, or something else.
4. How we can reach you. An email address or a phone number, whichever you prefer.

You do not have to prove who you are to start the process. If a request would remove or change material that other people also have an interest in, we may ask you a question or two to confirm your connection to it, and we will explain why we are asking.

If you would rather not email, write to Brisbane Pride Festival and mark the letter “Pride History Project, correction or removal request”. Post is slower, so email is better if you can.

What happens to the item while we assess your request

We take the item down first and assess afterwards. From the moment we receive your request:

• The item is unpublished. It disappears from the archive, from search on the site, and from the theme and decade listings, usually within one business day of us reading your request.
• Anyone who follows an old link to it sees a short “this item is currently unavailable” message, not the material.
• The item stays in our internal store while we assess the request, so that we can restore it if the request turns out to be about a different item, or put it back with the correction applied.
• We do not delete anything permanently until the request is resolved and you have been told the outcome.

We do it in this order deliberately. Leaving material up while a person waits for a decision about it puts the cost of our process onto them.

We cannot control copies that other people have already made, or pages cached by search engines. When an item is removed we ask the major search engines to drop it from their index, but that is a request, not a guarantee, and it can take them some weeks.

Our response times

• We acknowledge every request within 2 business days. That first reply confirms we have your request and names the person handling it.
• We tell you what we have done within 10 business days. Most requests are resolved well inside that.
• Urgent safety requests are actioned the same day we read them. If publication puts you at risk, for example it outs you somewhere you are not out, or it exposes you to someone you have left, say “urgent” in the subject line. We remove first and ask questions afterwards.

If a request is complicated, for example the copyright position is contested or two people want opposite outcomes, we will tell you before the 10 business days are up, explain what is holding it up, and give you a new date.

How we decide

Removal requests from a person in the material are granted. We do not ask you to justify it, and we do not weigh your request against the historical value of the item. A community archive that keeps material about people against their wishes is not serving the community.

Where a request is not about a person in the material, for example a factual correction or a copyright claim, a moderator assesses it and we tell you the reasoning either way. If we decide not to make a change you have asked for, we will say why, in plain language, and you can ask us to look again.

If you are not happy with the outcome

Reply to the email and ask for it to be reviewed by the Brisbane Pride Festival board. A different person will look at it and respond to you within 15 business days.

You can also raise a privacy concern with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

Related pages

• How we handle your data
• Contributor guide
• Submit material to the archive