The data is not lost, but unavailable to the average user. I would argue that altering the location is more of a loss of data because it is actually different from the true location.
But I agree that obscuring is often frustrating.
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Right, so mine is not altered. I actually live in âCentro, MĂ©rida, YucatĂĄnâ. That is just the deepest level I am comfortable clarifying my exact location â to any user, average or super spider special, sorry â so the pin is dropped where the algorithm places it.
I know this may look a bit comical with 3,900 obscured observations, but they are easily filterable (geoprivacy=obscured on any url) and itâs really a small box in the context of my city and state, so I enjoy the option. A collection label (unless it has precise GPS coordinates) would say about the same thing.
From what I understand, and please correct me if I am wrong, obscured is not actually very private but more the equivalent of a two year old throwing a blankie over their head and thinking they cannot be seen.
That is because (exact method detailed for anyone to view obscured coordinates, removed by ItsMeLucy).
I am extremely glad many of you feel perfectly safe sharing detailed residential information with an unknown number of unknown persons but please recognize that some of us, for professional or personal reasons, do not.
If the cost for maintaining my privacy is a minor degradation of data (Accuracy = 3.97 km also known as a half hour walk) I am quite good with it. The process I detailed is my workaround, which works for me, but nobody else has to use it.
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You are not wrong - but itâs considered better not to share methods for getting around obscuration on the forum. Better to edit to simply say that one should not assume that obscured is 100% secure and leave it at that.
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Thereâs a check box for this permission when joining a project
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Apologies, but I wanted to be clear that I understood correctly.
It greatly concerns me that people, conceivably who know well, are encouraging others who have expressed concern about the privacy of their location to use an insecure method.
So I will remove the exact method (I cannot edit the post that quotes it in part, however) but I will leave this here, in bold: obscuring location is not at all guaranteeing its privacy nor will you have any way of knowing who has seen your coordinates.
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Yeah, my observations are included in multiple projects of which I was unaware and assuredly never joined, which is fine because I am comfortable with how I have presented my location.
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Agree, I donât get why so many people suggest others to dilute their data instead of using a built in method made just for this occasion. Iâm not a fan of obscuring, but itâs much better than adding random circles where your house just happens to be on the edge of it. iNat rule of âmust fall withinâ is really not the greatest with how you can add a circle containing 2 continents and location would still be called âaccurateâ just because your country is within the circle. Same with smaller hiding circles, everyody will assume your position was in the centre of it, misinforming them, or theyâd just think you canât put your location in place and would avoid yours.
M, on default itâs turned off, if youâre the manager of a project you canât just see obscured obs because you turned the setting on, you need users to allow that, manually, and itâs impossible for those who didnât join the project.
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I am not drawing a ginormous circle enclosing 2 continents. I am drawing a circle one can transverse by foot in less than 30 minutes (paved, flat).
I am very clear that my observations are in my garden within my description and nobody avoids my data; it has been used for multiple taxon revisions within UNAM.
Again, if the price of my privacy is a slight degradation of data, I can and do live with that â extremely happily. I hope everyone is able to find the solution that works just as well for them.
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i would add that you should check your photos to make sure the true coordinates are not embedded in the metadata before you upload. if you upload them with GPS coordinates in the metadata, then folks will be able to see those uploaded GPS coordinates if they look at the photo detail page.
i donât think the analogy here is quite right. as they grow older, all babies eventually will come to understand on their own that the blanket doesnât cover other peopleâs vision. but i donât think most users will ever understand the full scope of how their obscured coordinates are vulnerable to discovery, unless someone comes along and shows them, which thankfully has not yet happened, as far as i know.
it is true that there are ways to discover the true coordinates for just about any obscured observation in the system. the good news is that the more obvious methods will work only in some cases, and the methods that work in nearly all cases are much, much less obvious. the bad news is that because the latter methods are not obvious, most people would not understand how to (or even that they would need to) protect themselves from those methods.
but i think what youâre doing does generally help to protect you in that if true coordinates are never recorded in the system, no one else will ever be able to discover them.
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That depends on how you set your pin. You set the pin, you set the accuracy circle and then you click âpin this locationâ and it will be exactly like you edited it.
I also think an accuray circle of even some kilometers is fine. If the species is common, it will probably also be there in 500m distance from the actual location and if it is rare I personally anyways prefer to not give a super exact location to just anybody. I have been in contact with experts on several occasions when they needed to know more, which is a different cup of tea.
How you deal with this kind of stuff might depend a lot on your cultural background and your experiences. I would for sure always be aware of revealing my home.
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(I use cameras which lack GPS capabilities so entering locations manually is a necessary and ânormalâ step in my upload process. I do that in iPhoto separately prior to uploading onto iNat. I accomplish that step whether or not a given image will be uploaded to iNat.)
So please help me understand: Is GPS metadata that is attached to an image blocked, overwritten, or otherwise unavailable for an observation that is obscured? If it is, then use of a general location at upload would be sufficient; it does constitute an âextraâ step for observers used to having GPS automatically attached and imported with observations. If that original metadata is not overwritten/blocked and the original GPS is available even for obscured observations, that gives rise to the privacy issue.
Like the way the online White Pages very quickly became useless â because everybody suddenly decided that they needed an unlisted number. For no reason in particular except a vague notion of âprivacy.â Which they didnât have when the White Pages was made of paper and delivered to everyoneâs doorstep.
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My home project is one of those in the Home Projects Umbrella. Looking at a map of observations, you can easily see where it is! The reason is that my garden is already known. Itâs been on garden tours, and Iâve hosted talks and workshops here on gardening with native plants, gardening for habitat, even how to document urban biodiversity with iNaturalist.
I started out using BugGuide before iNaturalist became available. They donât use GPS; you have to manually enter a location. I would give a location that was broad, but made it clear that it was not in a natural area, the general neighborhood and so on. One of the expert there would constantly ask me for a precise location. It bothered me until I learned that 1) he was a world expert for what I was posting, and 2) he used to live in my beighborhood, and was curious to know if I had found a new population!
I recommend that folks obscure locations if they are concerned about revealing locations. And I think itâs especially appropriate to do so for home projects, or where it could provide âtrace of lifeâ. I, and my garden, are properly in the minority.
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Open gardens like Yellow Book in UK or here the few that open for charities - yes that is a deliberate decision to make the address public and visitable.
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