Consent has long been recognised as an instrument of commercial image data processing. For decades, it has been established case law that a data subject can conclude a so-called model release contract with a press company, which authorises the press company to print the image of the data subject and the data subject usually receives a fee for this. As an instrument of commercial data processing in general, however, consent is highly controversial. A paradigmatic example of this is that the Digital Content Directive was initially intended to stipulate that contracts can also be concluded in exchange for the provision of personal data instead of a price. However, this wording no longer exists in the final version of the Digital Content Directive. In its final version, the Digital Content Directive only permits applicability to contracts that regard data as consideration, but leaves the question of whether and under what conditions such contracts can be concluded to the national legal systems. In order to fill this room for manoeuvre, the work develops practice-oriented results for data protection consent that acts as consideration in a contract, based on the established legal practice of consent under art copyright law and taking into account the requirements of European data protection law.
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