Informed consent in body art is a legal process, not a signature on a form. What must be disclosed, documented, and retained, and how GDPR applies to consent records.
Every tattoo and piercing procedure begins the same way: with a conversation about risk. That conversation is a legal event. What you say, what the client acknowledges, and what you document afterwards determine whether you have valid informed consent or a liability exposure you cannot defend.
Consent is not the form. The form is the record that consent happened. The distinction matters because a signed piece of paper without a genuine disclosure conversation is legally worthless. If a client later claims they were not told about a material risk, your signed form is only as strong as the conversation it documents.
What the full article covers
Informed consent has three legal elements: disclosure, comprehension, and voluntariness. A signed form proves none of them on its own.
The person performing the procedure must obtain consent. You cannot delegate the risk disclosure conversation to a receptionist or a form.
Photography consent is legally distinct from procedure consent. Record them separately.
Consent records are personal data under GDPR. Health information is special category data with specific obligations.
Retain consent records for a minimum of seven years, and longer for procedures on minors.
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First published on poliinternational.com. This is a summary of the original engineering article.
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