Looking over human observations reveals many photos of unaware minors with geolocation accuracy down to classroom level. The most recent page of 30 human observations reveals 7 observations of people not consenting, and 5 involve teenagers in schools with geolocation. Additionally, some observations add joke identifications, making fun of the person in comments, or just straight up bullying(hate speech/racist ID’s). I don’t see any reason for this on Inat, and there is absolutely no scientific value to any of these observations.
This personally happened to me last year when a classmate uploaded a photo of me to Inat without my consent and I had to flag it as copyright infringement to remove the photo. This made me feel extremely uncomfortable, and I imagine some of the people being uploaded without consent likely feel the same way.
Flagging as copyright infringement isn’t really appropriate except for extreme measures, and these photos may not qualify as inappropriate per Inat guidelines. Is there a way where identifiers/flaggers can deal with observations of humans(especially minors) taken in schools without permission with accurate geolocation?
Thanks.
Permission to take pictures is not required by any of iNat’s Community guidelines and there’s no way for iNat to document consent to photograph. If there’s concern about a photo, it’s best to flag the photo and express what the issue might be. Flagging for copyright when there is no copyright issue shouldn’t be done just to hide a picture - this could be considered abuse of the copyright flag. Many new users take pictures of other humans (or themselves) as one of their first observations, and many of these are made in good faith. Taking harsh curatorial action in situations like this has the potential to discourage new users.
If there’s a picture with an accompanying insult as an ID, comment, or note/description this does violate iNat’s guidelines and should be flagged for curator action. This could include hiding the comment, photo, or both. Generally action varies based on whether it is a silly, but not mean-spirited joke (an ID of someone as an axolotl or something vs. a dog which is likely intended as an insult.
It may go without saying, but any observation that violates iNat’s guidelines should be flagged (whether it is of a human or not). Content that doesn’t violate guidelines generally should not, though there are cases where it isn’t clear if guidelines are violated and it’s fair to raise a flag to ask.
I would also disagree with
We don’t know what future people may use for a scientific project or see scientific value in, and there’s not a need to make statements like this. iNat data has been used to study human behavior in several ways already. Additionally, there’s no requirement that iNat observations have any scientific value - it’s not something we’re asked to evaluate. That said, human observations certainly aren’t a focus of iNat per se.
I agree with Chris that these should certainly not be copyright flagged – that’s not what the function is intended to address. There are of course other types of flags that can be raised on an observation.
We hear your discomfort and we agree that some others might feel similarly if their pictures are uploaded without consent.
I definitely understand the points already made in response, but I do think it’s worth discussing the point of minors (particularly with high geographic specificity) being posted on iNat.
I also feel like there’s an issue worth discussing here a bit more seriously. Maybe one (partial) solution would be to set geoprivacy to “obscured” for Homo sapiens.
I actually think this could be a very good idea — at least there are more upsides than downsides that come to my mind. After all, observations of human(s) are useful more educationally (e.g. artifacts mistaken for other organisms’ traces, which I come across every so often on iNaturalist) or for research reasons that don’t require precise coordinates (no one is making environmental niche models of humans…), plus humans are more motile organisms than most and can easily move all over a grid cell.
I agree, and I think another pro is privacy/safety, while still allowing someone to see their area if concerned about a situation as described by OP. It wouldn’t catch humans ID’d as something else, but I presume those are generally caught relatively quickly.
Also discussed here:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-there-is-no-comprehensive-database-cleaning/59433
I did ask for one photo to be hidden. Unwilling photos of classmates have no value for iNat’s supposed focus on Wild. Violate privacy of children - which iNat absolutely SHOULD respect.
And for the few obs which do surface on the Forum, there will be many more where the victims suffer in silence. Or abandon iNat as yet another toxic space on social media.
I didn’t say this yesterday, but I lean more to this side on a personal level at least. I’d prefer no photos of children AT ALL being allowed. Or no photos with people’s faces clearly visible. I just don’t know how the logistics of implementing this would be solved.
Related to this and the last conversation, maybe just an option to make casual observations obscured/private for both the images and location would be useful.
Some photos that were flagged were not being removed even though they were taken in schools clearly without the person’s consent because “it didn’t violate Inat policy”. My high school had a big issue with this—I think seven photos were flagged(and they were from friends/classmates). I just hope that no one has to quit Inat because they feel unsafe from the start.
Did you also take that issue to help at iNat?
I cannot see how many obs of Homo sapiens there are, since iNat hides the number - sorry - forgot to tick Casual! But not the ‘offending’ photos! Now that iNat has grown so huge perhaps it is time to rethink harmless human photos. Treat them like rocks, and litter - iNat is not for that - please use an anthropology site (where I hope they are more careful about informed consent and children).
Why can’t I add photos of people to iNat … ?
I would make an exception if there are active projects using ‘evidence of human’.
I fully agree with observations of actual humans to be automagically deleted. The taxon Homo sapiens is useful to ID human-made stuff mistaken for organisms or organism traces, but otherwise I’d prefer iNat to be about non-human biodiversity only.
If we go this route. Perhaps instead of a “human” ID, there could be a DQA item for human-made stuff for observations that don’t include actual photos of people?
Evidence of human.
But not the actual human.
But it is illegal in some parts of the world to post pictures of others without consent.
I think it infeasible for curators to determine which images are posted with consent or without, and what the laws regarding this are where. Therefore, the most straightforward policy would be to simply disallow all photos of minors or maybe even of all people, as others have suggested.
As a mandated reporter with experience working in online spaces where child safety is a constant issue, I believe it’s definitely within the best interests of iNaturalist as well as the safety of minors to completely bar images of people under 18 on the site. Kids aren’t here for anyone to “study human behavior” ethically without their consent.
I’m also tired of seeing the full names of students used as usernames for obviously teacher-backed projects in K12 schools with exact geolocation/timestamps. It feels clearly concerning but apparently internet safety isn’t a priority.
I did with the cyberbullying observations towards me. Inat helped me with my problem but sadly there are many aspiring naturalists on here that are being photographed in class that hasn’t been addressed. There was an observation flagged two years ago from my high school that had teacher name and classroom-accurate coordinates that still has not been taken down(the photo has but not description) even though it was requested by multiple people.
I have 20 observations of humans out of 50K+. Only one is of a person(my shadow), some are misidentifications of fungi/animal damage, and some are of human-made artifacts.
There are 135,000 observations of humans on the site. Just today, 13 human observations were created from a single high school out of 158 observations(all are joke photos/recordings). Many of the observers have their full names on there.
Very frustrating, but I can’t flag the photos since there is technically no Inat rule violation.