A Belgian aesthetic clinic can have a useful, detailed website. It can introduce its practitioners, explain its work and help a patient prepare for a consultation. But it cannot treat aesthetic medical procedures like ordinary products to promote.
That distinction affects more than the words on a treatment page. It also affects photographs, paid ads, testimonials, contact forms and the chat tools added to a site.
Information about your practice is allowed
Belgium’s law of 23 May 2013 prohibits advertising aesthetic medical and surgical acts. It permits professional information about a practitioner and the nature of their practice. That information must be accurate, objective, relevant, verifiable, discreet and clear. It must not be misleading, comparative or use financial arguments to promote an aesthetic act. The law also requires the relevant professional titles to be stated. When a clinic publishes the information, it must identify the practitioners concerned and their titles. The Belgian Federal Public Health Service explains the distinction.
This split isn't just a regulator's summary — it comes from the Constitutional Court itself. In its ruling of 14 January 2016 (arrêt n° 1/2016), the Court drew the line between publicité (communication aimed at promoting aesthetic interventions and recruiting new patients — banned) and information professionnelle (communication about the nature of the practice and the interventions offered — permitted under conditions). Whether a page reads as one or the other is judged against that test.
Breaching the advertising ban isn't a purely administrative matter: the law of 23 May 2013 provides for fines or imprisonment, which can be combined or applied as alternatives.
For a website, that means a page can explain what a procedure involves, who performs it and what a patient may need to discuss in consultation. It should not read like a sales page promising a better face or body. “Book your transformation today” and a countdown discount are very different from a clear explanation of a procedure.
This does not mean removing useful patient information. A treatment page can discuss its purpose, the consultation, limitations, recovery and relevant risks. Our guide to what an aesthetic clinic website should include covers the information patients often look for. Belgian clinics must present that information within their own advertising and professional rules.
What about before-and-after photos and reviews?
A public before-and-after gallery is usually intended to show results and attract patients. For aesthetic medical acts in Belgium, that makes it difficult to separate from prohibited advertising. We would not build a promotional results gallery into a Belgian medical aesthetic site without specific professional legal advice.
There is a nuance here. The current law prohibits advertising these acts; it does not contain a simple sentence saying that every before-and-after photograph, in every setting, is banned. A clinical image in a patient’s private care record is not the same thing as a public website gallery. Consent to use a photograph does not, by itself, make promotional use lawful.
Patient testimonials need care too. The Belgian Medical Council’s guidance lists the publication of patient testimonials among the practices doctors should avoid in their professional communication. Copying a Google review onto a doctor’s treatment page does not automatically make it suitable for that page. See the Medical Council’s commentary on Article 37 of its Code of Medical Ethics.
Paid ads and medicine names need a separate check
The Belgian restriction on advertising aesthetic medical acts is not limited to a clinic’s own website. A search ad, social ad or landing page can also be an advertisement for an act. A clinic should review the whole journey, from the ad headline to the page it opens, before launching a campaign.
Medicines bring another set of rules. Belgium’s medicines agency, the AFMPS/FAMHP, says that only medicines available without a prescription may be advertised to the public. A product name should therefore not be dropped into promotional website copy simply because patients recognise it.
Forms, live chat and WhatsApp collect information too
A visitor may begin with an innocent question in a contact form: “Do you offer consultations?” The next visitor may describe a diagnosis, send a photograph or list previous treatments. Once a website accepts those details, the clinic needs to consider how that information is collected, delivered, stored and accessed. Health data receives special protection under the GDPR.
A practical approach is to ask for only what the first contact actually needs. A short callback or appointment request rarely needs a medical history or photographs. Tell visitors what the form is for, link to a clear privacy notice, and provide an appropriate route for sensitive information when the clinic needs it.
The same questions apply to live chat, AI chat and a WhatsApp button. Where do conversations go? Who can read them? How long are they kept? Does an outside provider process them? Can the clinic respond safely when someone sends a medical question or an urgent concern? The Belgian Medical Council stresses confidentiality when doctors use digital tools. Our article on GDPR and AI chatbots for aesthetic clinics examines the vendor questions in more detail.
WhatsApp is a contact option, not a substitute for deciding how patient information will be handled. A clinic should explain that clicking the button opens a third-party messaging service, choose which kinds of enquiry it will accept there and offer another way to get in touch. It should also assess any provider that handles website enquiries on its behalf. GDPR controller–processor relationships require an appropriate agreement; the clinic’s responsibilities do not disappear because a vendor supplies the tool.
Cookies and ad tracking are part of the website review
A cookie banner does not fix a site that loads advertising trackers before a visitor makes a choice. Belgium’s Data Protection Authority guidance on cookies and similar trackers says that non-essential tracking requires prior, valid consent. Visitors must be able to withdraw that consent.
This matters especially on pages about personal concerns or treatments. Before adding an ad pixel, a remarketing audience or an embedded chat widget, check what it loads and what information it sends.
For doctors specifically, this isn't only a data-protection question. The Belgian Medical Council's Code of Medical Ethics, Article 37 — already cited above on testimonials — separately lists the use of tools that identify or profile website visitors without their knowledge among the practices doctors must avoid. A pixel or fingerprinting script can trigger both the APD's consent requirement and this deontological rule at once.
“We have a privacy policy” is not enough if the site behaves differently.
How iGlowly approaches a Belgian clinic website
We structure the site around the clinic’s services, practitioners and patient questions. We may flag results galleries, testimonials, promotions, medicine claims or data collection tools for review.
The clinic and its practitioners check their clinical information, qualifications and professional obligations. They decide what appears on the website and approve the final content. If we raise a concern, the clinic makes the final decision and we follow its instructions.
See iGlowly’s managed website service for aesthetic clinics for the wider work involved in building and maintaining the site.