Any article that contains personal medical information about an identifiable living individual requires the patient’s explicit consent before we can publish it.

If consent cannot be obtained because the patient cannot be traced, then publication will be possible only if the information can be sufficiently anonymised; it means that neither the patient nor anyone else could identify the patient with certainty.

If the patient is dead the Data Protection Act does not apply. The authors should seek permission from a relative, as a matter of courtesy and ethics.

The most obvious places where identifiable information occurs is in case reports, and photographs of patients. However, the issue may also arise in articles describing research if the numbers in some subgroups are very small.

Consent for publication of pictures is necessary if there is any chance that a patient may be identified from a photograph or from its legend.

Images from x rays, endoscopy, laparoscopy, ultrasonography, pathology slides, or undistinctive parts of the body may be used without consent so long as they are anonymised by the removal of any identifying marks and are not accompanied by text that could reveal the patient’s identity.

An exception to this policy is when we use photographs from picture agencies (to illustrate news, for example) as we state where these photographs have come from and we rely on the fact that the agencies and their photographers have obtained the relevant permissions from the people shown in the photographs.

If the patient is a minor, obtain a signed form from his or her parent or guardian.