Labelling proposal for retouched advertising images and commercials rejected

The legal framework today

Currently, no regulations require advertising images and commercials to be labelled when digital retouching or body alterations have been applied to the depicted persons. However, under certain circumstances, retouched images may violate the general provisions on good marketing practice in Section 3 of the Danish Marketing Practices Act and the rules on misleading advertising in Sections 5 and 6.

The proposed labelling scheme

On 2 October 2024, a bill to amend to the Danish Marketing Practices Act was presented. The bill proposed the following new provision:

Labelling of retouched advertising images and commercials

• Section 11 c: A business that uses retouched advertising images or commercials in its marketing, where a person's body shape, size, or skin has been altered in a way that can contribute to body pressure, must label the images or film, cf. subsection 2.
• Subsection 2: The Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs lays down detailed rules on how advertising images and commercials should be labeled and any exceptions to the labelling requirement.

The explanatory notes to the provision clarified that retouching refers to changes made either at the time of or after the image or film was captured, including alterations to a person's body shape, size, or skin. Examples included making muscles appear larger or waists narrower. However, the removal of red eyes and changes to eye or hair colour were considered outside the scope of the provision.

The bill sought to introduce a labelling scheme that would apply broadly across all media and platforms. Businesses would have been required to use a state-issued label whenever a person's body shape, size, or skin was digitally altered from its natural state in a way that could contribute to body pressure.

The proposal was a reintroduction of an earlier bill that lapsed with the change of government in 2022. Since the bill this time around was proposed by a party which is not part of the government, it was not the expectation that it would eventually be passed.

However, the rejection of the current bill does not entail that a labelling scheme will not be proposed in the future. The government is currently considering whether to introduce a similar proposal, and we are monitoring the developments closely and will provide updates accordingly.

Want to know more?

For more information, please contact Plesner's Marketing Law and Consumer Law team.

The proposed legislation and relevant documents can be accessed at the Danish Parliament's website (in Danish)