This type of model could be a great boon for biologists/iNaturalists. For instance, it could probably easily flag images that might have an incorrect location and exclude them from datasets.
The privacy implications are also pretty clear though. Particularly , it could allow tracing of peopleās movements or identification of observation locations from the photos if they have enough background info. This might be of particular concern for observations of organisms threatened by poaching/collection. Iām not really an AI alarmist per se, and at present, the tech doesnāt seem to allow for super precise geolocation (roughly looks like it might ID to the same general area as iNat obscuration in some cases), so this probably isnāt a current concern.
But for sensitive observations, it might be a good, sensible precaution to only include pics with closeups of the organism. In the future, and with major companies building this out (instead of students for a class), I can imagine the models might be much more accurate and background info could conceivably be used to defeat obscuration. Of course, thatās potentially the case now if there are very recognizable landmarks and humans that can ID them too, and the precaution that for very sensitive stuff, it may be best to just not post is still relevant.
Yeah, I am not sure about this. While it could help observations with a false location, it could also give new users the incorrect location that they may chose. Not only that, but a lot of people would be concerned about privacy. However I am not an expert.
Iād have to count myself as one of the āAI alarmistsā, but not in the case of iNat images. I just scrolled rapidly through the first few pages of images under the Explore tab a few minutes ago and could find just two out of nearly 200 images that had anything resembling enough landscape information to potentially ID the location, and I doubt that would be possible even with the best AI. Coupled with a location pin, yes, of course a precise location could be determined, but the info in the images alone would not be sufficient.
Moreover, typically on iNaturalist, observations which show a small image of a critter or plant in a wide view are almost invariably pointed at common and/or planted species uploaded by relatively novice iNatters. So from a sensitive species protection viewpoint, I donāt see a high risk, especially for any observation which is obscuredā¦but I could be proved wrong.
it is already possible to discover the underlying coordinates of just about any of the obscured observations in the system.
i donāt think any AI or algorithm that figures out locations based on backgrounds in images is going to perform better than the methods already available.
things that really need 100% protection simply shouldnāt be posted in the system.
it is already possible to discover the underlying coordinates of just about any of the obscured observations in the system.
Assuming you are talking about capital-O Obscured observations and not just Public observations where the posted location has been manually changed in some way from the geotagged one, that is incredibly alarming and should be made extremely clear by iNat itself, at the very least to new users, so as to not mislead them.
What is not explained there is why iNat Australia (for example) doesnāt respect the geoprivacy I set on my own observations. This came up in another thread the other day and I probably should have made a comment there because I canāt find it now. Clearly the underlying coordinates are in the database so they can never be truly hidden from people with access to the database, but that iNat AU staff can see my locations (based on comments there) should be clearly explained, I think. It doesnāt really matter because generally I only hide coordinates because itās my house or Iām at a property where the owner has asked me to not make the location visible. Iāve always assumed that staff can see my coordinates by looking at the underlying database, but it seems that iNat AU can see the locations more easily. Why?
Edit: I should add that I think that something like this makes me want to change my affiliation and there should be a warning. I was quite shocked to find out that my affiliation affected something like this
i canāt find it right now ā maybe itās changed ā but the Terms of Use or one of those similar pages used to have a general warning similar to what i gave you in the last sentence of my earlier post.
even though itās not super satisfying, i think that kind of general warning is the best warning available. i donāt think trying to explain the problem extremely clearly is actually the right way to go in this case. the Help document tiwane pointed to above tries to provide a lot of detail, but honestly, i think whatās provided there actually confuses the situation even more ā not because whatās written there is inaccurate exactly, but because it gives the impression that people can understand the actual problem(s), which, frankly, i donāt think 99.9% of people will really understand, even if explained in excruciating detail.
i donāt think this is right. there are two ways to set geoprivacy. if you set it manually yourself, i donāt think iNat Australia will get your true coordinates. itās only when the geoprivacy is set at the taxon level when true coordinates can be sent to iNat Australia (or other institutions with whom iNat shares such information).
Based on the link Tony gave and the conversation the other day (which I canāt find) I think that because my affiliation is with iNat Australia they can see my obscured coordinates
Geoprivacy: If you set geoprivacy on your observations there are three ways the restricted location information can be shared with others:
hmmmā¦ maybe youāre right then. the Privacy Policy seems to support what youāre saying:
We share Personal Information associated with Usersā registration and account (non-public location data from Observations You post, IP address, email address, etc.) with representatives from iNaturalist Network Members (see https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/network for information about the iNaturalist Network) only for Users who have chosen to affiliate with that specific Network Member as their primary site. iNaturalist Network Members are responsible for the secure storage and responsible use of the data, and develop their own criteria on how data may or may not be reshared for non-commercial research, conservation, and species management purposes. You can prevent this sharing by affiliating with iNaturalist.org in your account settings.
Hereās how location access to a network site works:
Network partners get an export of all observations in their region twice a year. This export includes unobscured locations of observations if the observation is obscured only by taxon geoprivacy, regardless of who made the observation. So for example, Iām not affiliated with iNat Australia but I went there last year. For any observation I made thatās obscured due only to taxon geoprivacy, Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) will get access to their true coordinates in that export. But the true location of any observation I manually obscured will not be included in the export because Iām not affiliated with iNat Australia.
If you are affiliated with iNat Australia, then the export to ALA will include the true locations of all your observations in the region, regardless of the obscuration method. So if you donāt want ALA to get those locations, you should affiliate with iNaturalist, not iNaturalist Australia.
I hope that helps.
Itās not a warning, but thereās an explanation in the text under the affiliation chooser in Account Settings:
out of curiosity, can I ask why this is something you find so concerning? The only people who would be accessing these true coordinates of yours would be researchers/conservationists requesting them from the ALA
I find it concerning because if Iām visiting a personās house and they ask me to not reveal the location of their house or property I obscure the location as per their request. If itās not obscured because I use iNaturalist Australia, and the wording is a bit strange, I have two choices: a) I donāt upload those kind of observations at all; or b) I change my affiliation to inaturalist.org because it seems to have different rules (which is the bit I donāt understand)
I should add that I donāt mind if a bunch of iNat staff turn up at my house based on my obscured locations. It might even be fun, we could have a BBQ and a couple of beers. What I donāt understand is why there are different rules of disclosure based on my affiliation. E.g. from above āSo if you donāt want ALA to get those locations, you should affiliate with iNaturalist, not iNaturalist Australiaā (edit: itās a question of honour: I told the people I would obscure the location and if itās not really obscured then that makes me a liar). Maybe itās just the wording being used. Of course they have to share the underlying data with ALA, and I have no problem with that, but the way I read it things are more private if not using an affiliate site. Perhaps Iām just reading it wrong
While I appreciate the link, I donāt think it exactly addresses what @pisum was saying, unless Iām misunderstanding (and Iām taking into account their additional reply here as well) ā the link here does not say that you can retrieve the exact location data for any obscured observation, just that if the same user posts a non-obscured observation nearby, or does not crop the photo well enough to make it less obvious, it could be possible to guess.
My understanding of the part I quoted from pisum in my earlier post was that setting the geoprivacy to Obscure does not actually obfuscate any geotagging present in the uploaded photoās metadata, which, if true, would be a huge problem. Is this the case?
thatās not correct. other users cannot get to photo metadata on obscured observations. i donāt think itās a good idea to poke too deeply into this. i think itās enough to say that if you want 100% protection on any given observation, you shouldnāt post it.
Iām sorry for the misunderstanding. This is not the case.
all photos have their metadata stripped upon upload (aside from basic things like size, etc).
for any photo attached to an observation that has obscured or private geoprivacy, the metadata listed on its photo page does not publicly reveal location or date/time information. For example, this photo of mine is attached to an obscured observation. You should not be able to see any location or date/time data on that page. I can, however, because itās my photo.
The spooky results are in spaces where thereās an abundant corpus of geotagged photos, relying on the clumpiness of human photo-takers. I wouldnāt expect that corpus of tagged data to pop into existence for lightly trafficked areas.
For many obfuscation purposes a time delay is also strong protection. I wouldnāt worry much about how data leaked today may allow pinpointing the location in five years time - I would think in many cases that data is no stronger than reasoning from the topology and looking for the right habitat.
Side Note: One of the āgamesā I enjoy in my leisure time (as an ecologist and biogeographer) is to carefully view the habitat and landscapes in car commercials on TV, particulalry those filmed in my home state of Texas, and try to assign a very precise location to them. Even in the absence of famous landmarks, itās not too difficult to guess the biogeographic province of most of them. Sometimes landscape features allow for a county-level ID or closer.
I recall a story of a rare bird reported in the UK once that was concluded to be a hoax because in the photo it was standing on American-style barbed wire (I have no idea if the story itself was trueā¦).
