British Columbia — digitally altered images.
What the rule requires, how BCFSA enforces it, and how SEAREI ships the four compliance files in one delivery.
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Download the AB 723 compliance checklist (PDF, 2 pages, no signup) — California reference template →
A British Columbia / BCFSA-specific checklist is in preparation.
BCFSA Real Estate Services Rules.
British Columbia regulates licensee conduct through the BC Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) under the Real Estate Services Act and the BCFSA Real Estate Services Rules, which prohibit providing false or misleading information about real estate or real estate services. Publishing a digitally altered or virtually staged listing photo without disclosing the alteration is the kind of misleading presentation that duty is concerned with.
We don’t reproduce a photo-specific “virtual staging” rule here: BCFSA’s Rules address false or misleading information generally, and we can’t tie a verbatim image-disclosure rule to a public primary source. Confirm the current requirements with BCFSA or your brokerage’s managing broker.
Personal information attached to digitally altered images (location data, original capture metadata) may also engage the British Columbia Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA BC).
What a BCFSA disciplinary review looks like.
BCFSA has disciplinary authority over real estate licensees and can issue orders ranging from administrative penalties to licence suspension or cancellation. A review typically begins with a complaint to BCFSA or a local board (Greater Vancouver REALTORS®, formerly REBGV; FVREB; VIREB), and PIPA BC creates a parallel exposure for mishandling personal information. The specific timelines and process are set out in BCFSA’s published enforcement procedures — the practical step for a licensee is to keep the unaltered original, the disclosure as published, and the date the image was altered on hand.
The disclosure wording for this market.
This image has been digitally altered to show virtual staging.
Four concrete deliverables per job.
- Disclosure-labeled export using BC’s “digitally altered” phrasing on or adjacent to every staged image.
- Unaltered original hosted at a permanent public URL, built for the BCFSA disclosure expectation (confirm the current BCFSA rule) without exposing PIPA-relevant metadata.
- A compliance certificate that can’t be quietly changed — an HTML certificate plus a tamper-proof fingerprint of every file — covering both the staging transformation and the personal-information handling chain.
- A dated record of every change. Every step on the listing — upload, overlay applied, certificate generated, re-rendered after revisions — is timestamped and shown on the verification URL, so a BCFSA officer or board compliance officer can see the full history of every image months after the listing closes.
BCFSA Real Estate Services Rules · BC Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner — PIPA BC · Greater Vancouver REALTORS® (formerly REBGV).
SEAREI provides compliance workflow tools. This page is not legal advice. Confirm final disclosure requirements with your board, brokerage, and BC counsel.
Last updated: May 6, 2026 · SEATECHONE LLC
New to the rules? Start with the complete AB 723 guide.
The rule differs board by board. A few related markets to compare — the full list is on the compliance overview: