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.