Terms of use

Please read these Terms of Use ("Terms") carefully – by accessing or making any use of Photobox, you are agreeing to them. You also agree to our Privacy Policy, which sets out how we deal with Photobox users' personal information and privacy.

1. Introduction

These Terms set out your rights and obligations, and those of Photobox Limited ("we" or "us"), in relation to www.photobox.co.uk (the "Site"), any Photobox application that you access (the "App") and any goods or services available through, and material of any kind accessible or relating to, the Site, the App or us (the “Services”). When we refer to "Photobox" in these Terms, we mean us, the Site, the App and/or the Services, according to the context.

You must take the time to read and understand these Terms before using Photobox services. By registering with Photobox, you accept that you are entering into a contract with us under these Terms. People who register for Photobox establish an "Account", and become "Users". Visitors to Photobox who do not become Users, but who nevertheless use the Site and/or download the App, affirm that they are bound by these Terms each time they access Photobox. You should be aware that these Terms may change from time to time in accordance with Clause 20 below.

2. Obtaining an Account and providing a Payment Method

If we ask you to provide some information about yourself when you register for Photobox, you must ensure that this information is accurate and current. You may keep this information updated through your Account.

Note that we are entitled to treat anything done through a User's Account, or by means of an email address, phone number or other communications method associated with that Account, as having been done by the User; it is up to the User to maintain the security of his/her Account.

When you place an order for a Product, you will need to supply us with details of a payment method, such as a credit or debit card, (your “Payment Method”) and other personal details so that we may process the order for you. If you elect to store a Payment Method with Photobox, that Payment Method – with some of its details masked, for security reasons – will automatically be used; you may, however, be required to provide certain information (such as, but not limited to, a CV2 card security number) in order to proceed with using that stored Payment Method. In the event that you supply or attempt to use an invalid Payment Method, or a Payment Method which has lapsed, an order made using that Payment Method will fail. If we suspect that your Payment Method belongs to someone else or is one which you are not entitled to use, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate your Account at any time.

The same person may not register more than one Account. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate any Account which we reasonably suspect of infringing this requirement.

Important: you must ensure that the email address we hold for you is kept up-to-date and that you have full access to it – we will be sending you important messages there. So if you change email address, then you must change it on your Account. Should you provide an invalid email address or an email address that belongs to someone else, Photobox may terminate your Account at any time without notice.

You must also ensure that the postal address to which we send you Products and communications is kept up-to-date in your Account.

You should not register as a User if you are under 13 years of age.

3. The Essentials of Photobox

Photobox allows Users to upload and store digital photographic images (each an “Image”), and to access those Images through the User’s Account – this is your “Image Storage”. All Images must meet our Image specifications, which may be changed by us from time to time.

For further guidance and information on uploading Images please visit our FAQs.

Photobox offers Users the ability to order:

  • prints of their Images;
  • personalised products and services which bear Users’ Images on or within them;
  • other, non-personalised, products and services,
  • and we refer to those prints, products and services as our “Products”.

As Photobox evolves and changes over time, we may add Products or remove Products from our Services. Clause 6 contains the terms of purchase for Products. It is the responsibility of Users to have sufficient web, app and device usage skills to make use of our Services.

Important: your Image Storage with Photobox must not be used as your main or back-up storage facility for your Images. It is up to Users to make sure that their Images are securely stored elsewhere, as we do not guarantee that we will continue to make Image Storage available to you.

Although we incur a cost in providing you with Image Storage, we don’t charge for providing. However, we only provide Image Storage for Users whose Accounts show a basic – and very minimal – level of activity.

Therefore, each User must log in to his/her Account at least once in any period of 24 months for the Image Storage associated with that Account to be maintained. So if you do not log into your Account for 24 months, Photobox will permanently remove your Image Storage – including your Images, all Product creations using your Images and related User Content (see Clause 5 below) – from your Account, and they will not be accessible to you any more. To reiterate: you must ensure that your Images and related content are stored elsewhere, and that you do not rely on Photobox to store and access them, because they will be removed if your Account is inactive for 24 months. We will notify Users by email before we remove their Image Storage.

4. Your Images

Photobox allows you to access your Images through your Account. However, please note that:

  • we provide Image Storage at no cost principally in order to facilitate Users’ creation and purchase of personalised Products bearing their Images
  • accordingly, we do not intend or invite Users to store their Images other than for those purposes
  • your Image Storage may be removed if your Account is inactive – see Clause 3 for details;
  • your Image Storage must comply with our reasonable fair use requirements;
  • those fair use requirements would be breached by, for example:
    • the automated or scripted uploading of Images or other User Content;
    • the uploading of Images or other User Content on a high-frequency basis; or
    • the inclusion of very large volumes of Images or other User Content in an individual album
  • should you breach our fair use requirements, we may suspend your Account, cease to provide you with Image Storage and/or delete your Images and other User Content from our systems
  • in the course of storing your Images, we reserve the right to apply various techniques to make generally accepted improvements to the quality of the Image, such as by:
    • removal of “red-eye”;
    • brightness enhancement; and
    • detail enhancement
  • we also reserve the right to make changes to Images which are intended to improve their storability, including:
    • Compression;
    • Size reduction and downscaling; and
    • Format conversion.
  • We strive to retain Images that are of sufficient quality for inclusion in personalised Products, but some loss and modification of detail may be apparent under close examination;
  • we use reasonable commercial endeavours in our provision of Image Storage, but do not provide any guarantees as to the availability, speed of access to or reliability of the storage we provide;
  • when you upload an Image to your Account, then – unless you create a new album or add the Image to an existing album in your Account – it will be placed in a temporary album for 30 days. At the end of that period, the Image will be automatically deleted – unless you transfer the Image to a “permanent” album, or you convert your temporary album into a “permanent” album (you can find out how here)
  • images and other User Content may be deleted from your Account in various circumstances, as stated elsewhere in these Terms (including Clauses 3, 5 and 8);
  • our policies concerning the storage of Images and User Content may change from time to time;
  • if an Image does not meet our specifications you may not be able to upload it and/or you may find that it is not possible to use that Image in conjunction with some or all of our Products;
  • we have rules about User Content, and these apply to the content of Images (see Clause 5 below) (“Content Rules”); if you breach our Content Rules, we may – among other things – terminate your Account. If your Account is terminated, we may delete all Images associated with that Account, so that they will no longer be accessible; and
  • if we are notified of a claim or allegation that an Image breaches our Content Rules, we may prevent that Image being accessible through Photobox or being used in connection with Products.

Note that we may send you postal mail or emails which include one or more of your Images, such as by showing examples of personalised Products which may be of interest to you: by uploading Images, you consent to us doing these things with your Images.

Photobox allows you to share your Images with others (your "Guests") by allowing them to have access to your Images. This sharing can be effected by means we make available from time to time, such as by email to Guests, by sharing on the web or through social media. By sharing Images with Guests:

  • you undertake that you have those Guests’ consent to the sharing of your Images with them;
  • you agree that doing so will not result in an infringement or perceived infringement of our Content Rules; and
  • you acknowledge and agree that Guests – and others with whom they may share the Images – may:
    • purchase Products which include those Images;
    • submit comments about the Images; and
    • notify us if Images infringe our Content Rules.

We are not responsible for the acts or omissions of Guests.

You must not share or allow access to any of your Images in return for payment or for any other commercial purpose.

If you delete Images from your Account, we will promptly remove the Images from the “album” view in your Account, but the Images will not be completely erased from our systems; “deep” links which lead directly to the relevant Images may continue to provide access to those Images. Initially we will apply a grace period of at least one month before completely erasing deleted Images from our systems: this grace period is applied in case we are requested by you to recover the Images or if we are asked by a relevant third party to recover them. Once the grace period is ended, we will check if the Images are in use on our systems, as part of a personalised Product or in some other way. If the Images are in use, we will send you an email explaining that the Images are in use and how you can release them to allow them to be erased from our systems. For more information on our Image deletion policies and practices, please contact our customer services team.

As indicated in Clause 3, you should make sure that your Images are securely stored elsewhere, as we do not undertake or guarantee to keep your Images and other User Content indefinitely, and we will not be responsible for the loss of, deletion or corruption of Images or any User Content. We do not keep back-up copies of Images and other User Content; we have no liability to you or any User if Images or other User Content become lost or corrupted as a result of any cause (including human error, software or hardware failure, failures of telecommunications or internet services, or events beyond our control).
If we actively decide that we are to cease hosting Images or other User Content, we will give you reasonable advance notice (of at least three months’ duration) to permit you to make alternative arrangements.

5. User Content and Content Rules

Images and other material (including textual annotations to and comments on Images) uploaded, posted, contributed, distributed, communicated, transmitted or linked-to by a User on, through or in connection with Photobox are treated as "User Content" for the purposes of these Terms. Users must have the right to deal, and the right to authorise us to deal, with their User Content in the ways that they and we use it in connection with the Services or for other purposes referred to in these Terms. You must not upload User Content, or otherwise deal with User Content through Photobox, if you do not have the right to do so. Each User shall ensure that his/her User Content, and his/her and our use of it, does not:

  • infringe anyone’s copyright; in particular, you must ensure that you either own the copyright in an Image that you upload to Photobox or that you are fully licensed by the copyright owner to upload the Image and to make any subsequent use of it (such as by including the Image in a Product) or in email and postal communications we send to you);
  • infringe anyone’s privacy or data protection rights; in particular, you must ensure you have the right to depict any person who appears in an Image that you upload to Photobox and to authorise the subsequent use of it (such as by including a depiction of that person in a Product or in email and postal communications we send to you);
  • infringe any othe