Legal
Privacy Policy
What we collect when you look at, join or show work on Bentwall, why, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it.
Last updated 1 October 2026
The short version
- We collect little. An email address, a username and a password to sign in; your ID check, done by ProntoID; and the photographs you choose to show, with what you wrote about them.
- Nothing here is for sale, including you. We don’t sell personal data, don’t share it for marketing, and Bentwall runs no advertising or analytics code.
- ID checks only where needed. Showing work with nudity needs a one-time ID check. The documents are held by ProntoID, separately from everything on this site, and are never shown to anyone.
- Anyone pictured can have a work taken down, straight away and without an account or a reason.
- One account, two sites. A Bentwall account is a BentBox account, run by the same company, under the same law.
Who we are
Bentwall (bentwall.com) is operated by Haas & Reed B.V., registered in the Netherlands under number 68817940, at Mantelmeeuwhof 15, 3582 DN Utrecht, the Netherlands (“we”, “us”). We are the controller of the personal data described in this Policy.
We also operate BentBox (bentbox.co). Bentwall uses BentBox’s account and storage systems: creating an account on Bentwall creates a BentBox account, with the same username and password, and the same controller is responsible for it on both sites. You never need to use bentbox.co to use Bentwall. If you do, BentBox’s own privacy policy covers what happens there.
We are supervised by the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) for EU GDPR matters. For people in the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner’s Office is the relevant authority.
Identity verification is carried out by ProntoID, operated by Brooks & Keitt Sàrl, a separate company that acts as an independent controller of the identity records it holds (see Identity verification).
This Policy is written to meet the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018, the EU GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) and the EU Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065).
What we collect
If you only look at the wall
Visiting Bentwall without an account involves very little personal data: your IP address and browser details reach our servers as part of every request, and are kept in security logs. If you confirm you are 18 or over to see a covered work, that answer is stored in a cookie on your device, not with us. If you love a work, we keep that heart (see “Loves” below) under a random code, not your name.
If you create an account
| What | Details |
|---|---|
| Account | Email address, username, and your password, stored only as a salted hash. A referral code, if you arrived with one. |
| Sign-in records | The time, IP address and browser of sign-ins and sign-in attempts, and your approximate country (from your IP address). If two-step sign-in is on, the one-time codes we email you and whether they were used. |
| Verification outcome | Whether your identity and age have been verified by ProntoID, and when. Not the documents themselves. |
If you show your work
| What | Details |
|---|---|
| The work | The photograph you upload. We make web-sized copies and strip the embedded metadata (EXIF, including any GPS location) from everything we show. The camera model is read from it first and offered to you to keep or delete. |
| What you tell us | Title, caption, camera, categories, whether only you are pictured, and whether the work contains nudity. |
| Your certification | That you accepted the certification statement, which version of it, when, from which IP address and browser. This is the record that each work was shown with your confirmation that it is your own and that everyone in it is an adult who agreed. |
| Automated checks | Before a person reviews a work, an automated check counts the faces in it, estimates whether anyone may be young, looks for explicit content and compares it with works already sent. These results only flag a work for closer human review; they never decide anything on their own. |
| Review | Who reviewed the work and when, the decision, and any reason we sent you. |
| Loves | Which works you loved and when; your account if you were signed in, otherwise the random code in the bw_vid cookie; and a hash of your IP address that changes daily, used only to stop the same hearts being counted again and again. A work’s photographer sees how many people loved it and the @handles of those who were signed in. Nobody else sees any of it. |
| Connections | Connections you make between your works and others: which works, how they relate, whether you noted them privately or asked to show them, and when. Your answers to other photographers’ requests, and who took a connection down. When you connect your work to another photographer’s, they are told it was you and which works. We email you when someone connects their work to yours, when a request is waiting, and when one of yours is accepted (at most one of each an hour). A noted connection is never shown publicly. |
If you contact us
Your message and anything you attach, and our reply. This includes reports about works and requests about your data.
How we use it, and why
We may only use personal data where the law gives us a reason (a “lawful basis”). These are ours:
| What we do | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Run your account: sign-up, sign-in, two-step codes, showing your work and your photographer page, taking work down when you ask. | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Verify the identity and age of people who show work with nudity. | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)); for any special category data, explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a)) |
| Keep the certification record for each work, review works, and act on reports. | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)); legitimate interests in keeping the wall lawful and safe (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Automated checks that flag works for human review. | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)): protecting the people pictured and keeping minors and non-consensual images off the wall |
| Security: rate limits, the security code, abuse detection, logs. | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Emails about your account and your works: codes, review decisions, changes to these terms. | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Answering legal requests and meeting our obligations under the DSA and data protection law. | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Establishing, exercising or defending legal claims. | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)); Art. 9(2)(f) |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights. You can ask us about that assessment.
Nudity and sensitive data
Bentwall shows artistic photography, including fine-art nudes. A photograph of a person, particularly an unclothed one, can be sensitive, and in some cases may reveal information the law treats as special category data.
We process it only where a condition in Article 9(2) applies: where the person pictured has made it public themselves (Art. 9(2)(e)), as when a photographer shows their own self-portrait; where they have given explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a)), which the photographer certifies for everyone else pictured; or where it is needed for legal claims (Art. 9(2)(f)).
Consent can be withdrawn at any time. When someone pictured withdraws it, the work comes off the wall; see If you are in a picture.
Identity verification
Anyone who shows work with nudity on Bentwall first verifies their identity and age once, through ProntoID. Work without nudity doesn’t need it, though we may ask any photographer to verify. ProntoID collects your identity document and a live photo, confirms you are 18 or over, and tells us the outcome. It runs separately from Bentwall and BentBox, holds the documents as an independent controller, and publishes its own privacy notice.
From ProntoID we receive the outcome of the check, the date, and the audit details needed to show that it was done. We don’t receive or keep your identity document. We may also ask a photographer to verify, through ProntoID, the identity and consent of someone else pictured in a work; the same separation applies.
If you are in a picture
Some of the people whose personal data we hold are not Bentwall users: they appear in a work someone else showed. If that is you, we did not collect your data from you; we received it from the photographer.
You can have the work taken down. Write to privacy@bentbox.co with a link to it. You don’t need an account or a reason, and it doesn’t matter what you signed or how long ago. If you tell us you didn’t agree to it being shown, it comes off the wall while we look into it, not after.
We may hold the work itself, the photographer’s certification about it, and where it was requested, the outcome of the verification of your identity and age. You have all the rights listed below. Whatever arrangement you have with the photographer is between the two of you; it doesn’t change how we handle a takedown request.
We can’t always reach the people pictured directly. Where contacting you would be impossible or involve disproportionate effort, this section is how we tell you, as Article 14(5)(b) GDPR allows. Where we do have your details, we use them.
What is public
Once a work is approved, the following can be seen by anyone, on Bentwall and on the Art Wall at bentbox.co, which shows the same works:
- the work, its title, caption, categories, camera and the date it was hung;
- accepted connections between your works and other works, shown on both works’ pages (connections you only noted are never public);
- your @username, credited on every work, and your photographer page at bentwall.com/username, which lists your works and the cameras you use most.
Your email address, your verification and your certification records are never public. Works you haven’t sent, works still in review and works that were declined are seen only by you and the reviewers. Approved works without nudity can be indexed by search engines; works with nudity are covered until a visitor confirms their age, and are kept out of search.
International transfers
We operate from the Netherlands, and Bentwall is hosted by AWS in the United States. Where personal data leaves the UK or the European Economic Area, we rely on an adequacy decision (such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension, where the recipient is certified) or on Standard Contractual Clauses with, for the UK, the International Data Transfer Addendum. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards for a particular transfer.
How long we keep it
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account | While it is open; then up to 90 days after it is closed, unless the law requires longer or we need it for a legal claim. |
| Works on the wall | Until you, or someone pictured, takes them down, or we remove them. |
| Works taken down, and their certification and review records | The work leaves public view straight away. The record that it met our age and consent requirements is kept for up to six years, so we can show that, and to deal with disputes and legal claims. Taking a work down and keeping that record are separate things. |
| Verification records | Held by ProntoID, under its own retention schedule. |
| Reports, complaints and requests | Up to three years after they are resolved. |
| Security logs and sign-in records | Up to 12 months, longer if part of an investigation. |
After that we delete the data or make it permanently anonymous. Copies can remain in encrypted backups for a short time before they are overwritten.
Your rights
Under UK and EU data protection law you have the rights below. Some have limits, explained in the next section. You don’t need an account to use them, and if you are pictured in a work, we act on your request wherever you live.
- Access Art. 15
- Ask whether we hold data about you, and get a copy.
- Correction Art. 16
- Have wrong data corrected, or incomplete data completed.
- Erasure Art. 17
- Have data deleted, for example when we no longer need it or you withdraw consent.
- Restriction Art. 18
- Ask us to hold data without using it, for instance while a complaint is looked at.
- Portability Art. 20
- Get the data you gave us in a common, machine-readable format.
- Objection Art. 21
- Object to what we do on the basis of legitimate interests.
- Automated decisions Art. 22
- We don’t make decisions about you by automated means alone. Our automated checks only flag works for a person to review.
- Withdraw consent Art. 7(3)
- Where we rely on consent, withdraw it at any time.
- Complain Art. 77
- To a supervisory authority: in the Netherlands the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, in the UK the ICO, or the authority where you live or work.
Using your rights
Write to privacy@bentbox.co. We reply within one month, and if a request is complex we may take up to two more months, telling you within the first. We’ll ask you to confirm who you are, usually by replying from the email address on the account, so that nobody else can get your data.
Rights have limits. We may refuse requests that are manifestly unfounded or excessive; we may have to remove other people’s data from what we send you; and we may have to keep some records even after you ask us to delete them, where the law requires it or for a legal claim. If we refuse a request, we’ll say why and how you can challenge it.
Children
Anyone can look at Bentwall, and looking needs no personal data beyond what every website receives (see What we collect). Accounts are only for people aged 18 or over. We don’t knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18 through an account; if we learn that we have, we close the account and delete the data, keeping only what the law requires.
No one under 18 may appear in any work on Bentwall, whether or not it contains nudity. If you think a minor appears in a work or is using an account, write to privacy@bentbox.co straight away.
Security
All connections to Bentwall are encrypted (TLS), and stored data is encrypted at rest. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes; session cookies are HttpOnly and Secure. Access to personal data is limited to the people who need it and is logged. Identity documents never reach Bentwall’s systems.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach is likely to put your rights at risk, we tell the supervisory authority within 72 hours where required, and we tell you without undue delay if the risk to you is high.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, or with a decision about a work, write to privacy@bentbox.co with “Complaint” in the subject. This is our internal complaint-handling system under Article 20 of the Digital Services Act. We acknowledge within five working days, a person not involved in the original decision looks at it, and we aim to answer within 30 days. If we got it wrong, we put it right: a work removed in error goes back up.
You can also go to a supervisory authority, to an out-of-court dispute settlement body certified under Article 21 of the DSA, or to court.
Changes
When we change this Policy we update the date at the top. If a change matters, we tell account holders by email or on the site before it takes effect.
Contact
Privacy questions and requests: privacy@bentbox.co.
By post: Haas & Reed B.V., Mantelmeeuwhof 15, 3582 DN Utrecht, the Netherlands.
See also the Terms of Use and About Bentwall.
Haas & Reed B.V. · Mantelmeeuwhof 15, 3582 DN Utrecht, the Netherlands · info@bentbox.co