Milan Takes a Harder Line on Duplicate Images Than London or Paris. Here's Why.

Milan's flagship digital heritage programme, run out of the Castello Sforzesco's archival unit in the Parco Sempione complex, flagged more than 14,000 suspected duplicate image files in its municipal database during the first half of 2026—a number that administrators say has roughly doubled since generative AI tools became widely accessible in late 2023. The duplicates ranged from near-identical fashion-week press shots recycled across city tourism portals to redundant architectural renders cluttering the Porta Nuova urban development repository.

The timing matters. With the Milan–Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics now less than six months from opening ceremonies, the city's communications directorate is under pressure to present a clean, credible digital face to global broadcasters and press agencies. Duplicate or misattributed imagery in official feeds is not a cosmetic problem—it erodes rights clearances, triggers copyright disputes, and in one documented case this spring delayed publication of an official Games sponsor campaign by 11 days while rights were untangled.

What Milan Is Actually Doing

The Comune di Milano began piloting a deduplication protocol in January 2026 across three civic repositories: the Archivio Fotografico Civico on Via Moscova, the design-sector asset library maintained jointly with the Triennale di Milano in Viale Alemagna, and the tourism image bank operated under the BeSmart Milano portal. The protocol uses perceptual hash comparison—a technique that identifies visually identical or near-identical images even when file names and metadata differ—rather than relying solely on manual review. The city contracted local tech consultancy Dedalo Digital, based in the Isola neighbourhood, to implement the system at a reported cost of roughly €280,000 for the initial 18-month phase.

The Triennale partnership is particularly significant. The institution's design archive holds more than 400,000 digitised items, and staff there had been managing duplicates manually until earlier this year. Under the new shared protocol, automated alerts now flag potential duplicates for human review within 48 hours of upload rather than leaving them to accumulate for quarterly audits.

How Milan Compares to London, Paris, and New York

London's equivalent effort has been slower to centralise. The Greater London Authority and the Museum of London Archaeology both operate image repositories, but as of early 2026 there was no unified deduplication standard across those bodies—a gap flagged in a digital asset management review published by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in March 2026. Paris has moved further, with the Bibliothèque nationale de France completing a full deduplication sweep of its Gallica platform in late 2025, removing approximately 22,000 redundant image records from a collection of 1.4 million digitised items, according to the BnF's 2025 annual report. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art announced in April 2026 that it was integrating perceptual hashing into its Open Access image pipeline, though the rollout is not expected to complete until the second quarter of 2027.

Milan's advantage is partly structural. The city's fashion and design economy has long demanded rigorous image rights management—the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana has maintained rights-tracking infrastructure since 2018—giving civic institutions a ready model to adapt. Paris benefits from larger state budgets; the BnF's digital operations receive central government funding that smaller Italian municipal archives cannot match. London and New York are further behind on cross-institutional coordination, though both have larger raw budgets to accelerate once policy aligns.

The practical stakes are straightforward. For journalists, designers, and event organisers pulling imagery from city-run portals ahead of the Olympics, a deduped archive means fewer licensing headaches and faster turnaround. For the city itself, it means fewer embarrassing moments when the same photograph appears simultaneously credited to three different photographers on an official press release.

Dedalo Digital's contract runs through June 2027, with a formal performance review scheduled for October 2026—just before the Olympic torch relay passes through Lombardy. Whether the protocol is expanded to cover the region's broader cultural institutions, including the Pinacoteca di Brera and the Museo del Novecento on Piazza del Duomo, will likely depend on that review's findings and on whether Lombardy's centre-right regional government agrees to co-fund a shared infrastructure upgrade alongside the centre-left Comune.