Observations in private land

General
21

I’ve sent her links to the obs so that she knows what her back irons and neighbors’ fences look like. She hasn’t complained about the coordinates being public.

I obscure observations at or near my home. This box turtle I observed on the road just outside where I was living, so I obscured it, regardless of that box turtles are always obscured.

I’ve made several observations, such as this oak, in a gated community. To get there, you’d have to find out the gate code, which is changed every so often. You might could get there by pulling off route 74 and hiking down a steep slope; I don’t remember if there’s a fence.

I calculated the coordinates from GPS measurements of the front corners of the lot, of which one said it was fixed but turned out to be inaccurate, and the other said it was DGPS or float, I don’t remember. I’ll probably have more precise coordinates of one of those corners tomorrow. I can normally get precise positions within a few millimeters, but on this lot the points I got fixed on didn’t agree with the total station measurements; the GPS measurements had errors because of tree cover.

22

You are missing my points. First being, there are many reasons to obscure the coordinates to something you post online. They might not be obvious to a person (you, me, anyone else) but that does not invalidate them. I was simply running through lists of many (but not all-inclusive) known problems with location data being shared online. There will be more.

I don’t obscure coordinates at commercial properties that welcome the public. Because they welcome the public. I do obscure them at people’s homes. No, it is not the fault of the shared observation and yes, it is the fault of the trespasser. That said, I have a realistic view of human nature and understand that there are people who will use information they find online to go where they shouldn’t (again, for many reasons). I am not going to give them that information.

I’m not asking to change inat norms. I have made a personal decision based on things that have happened to me, things I have observed occur to others, and things I have read about. inat allows me to do so. I extend that courtesy to observations that I make at someone else’s home, too.

Who said it was an invitation? The lack of an invitation doesn’t stop some people. Understand, also, that there may be other information contained within a geotagged photograph that is of concern - not the nature observation itself. Maybe that photo shows a reflection of something. Maybe it’s something in the background. Could be lots of things.

google allows you to fuzz out your home, car, or self from street view. is it a problem if someone wishes to do that?

why make it easier for a bad actor to find your house?

I presume you have never been stalked or doxxed online. I have. The decision to do this probably doesn’t come gradually. It’s impulsive. And if they’re internet-savvy, they’re going to look in a LOT of places to try to track you down. If they’re determined enough and they know where to look, they’ll find the information they want. So why do so many people here second-guess my desire not to make it even easier for said bad actors? I’m not going to second-guess anyone else’s decision why they want to hide their coordinates or why they want to make the coordinates of everything they observe broadly public. You do you.

23

I am very sorry for your experiences online.

That said, kindly do not make assumptions about my experiences, which this thread is not about.

I think language difference must be very high today for me, because I feel unable to express myself well.

I am not asking about obscuring one’s observations at one’s own home nor about obscuring observations of rare or out of range species. I am not asking why one might choose to have contract work done that might include the taking of photos.

I am only trying to determine if the rationale for even considering obscuring locations of non-imperiled, otherwise ordinary observations taken on private property owned by others is due to

a. property rights of the owners

or

b. concern that members of the general public might choose to act on the observation, ordinary though it may seem, and visit the location.

That is all I was asking.

Since the OP has come back to clarify how he determines the coordinates (thank you) but did not answer the why for his original question:

I suppose it will remain unanswered.

And that is OK, but respectfully, please do not make assumptions about me or my experiences, which are not the topic.

24

I was addressing a subset of your questions because I DO obscure coordinates on private property (other people’s property). I was explaining my reasons for doing so. Because I have experienced firsthand how bad actors will obtain information online if they choose to do so, I choose to extend the courtesy of obscuring the coordinates on other people’s private property in addition to my own. I also gave some other examples of reasons why people might want to obscure the locations of non-imperiled species. But you still expressed difficulty understanding this and doubled down on it.

I’d also like to point out that if the center of a very large accuracy circle is the location of the observation, the over-large accuracy circle doesn’t really do anything to hide the real location. You also have to ensure that the center of the accuracy circle points elsewhere and that the accuracy circle encompasses the real location. This sort of thing could potentially be less than helpful for scientific investigations (yes, scientists will filter the data and will most likely programatically rule out any data points with accuracy below a certain threshold, but this results in fewer data points they can use). Whereas by obscuring the coordinates, the more accurate location is saved and is potentially accessible for someone who would like to use it for scientific investigation. inat has mechanisms in place for scientists to obtain the accurate coordinates for obscured locations.

I will give yet another example that may have some relevance. In a previous job, I worked with photographic data. Photos I took with my personal phone were my own and I could make inat observations (though for other people in other jobs different rules may apply). However, photos that came from the project cameras required permission for me to share and make inat observations with. I received blanket permission, assuming I tagged the organization in the comments. These observations were on public land, but the locations were sites we used for many years. I occasionally shared observations of imperiled species, but often not. I still obscured the coordinates for all of them. Why? I didn’t want anyone showing up and stealing our equipment at our study sites. I didn’t want anyone noting that the photo background of an imperiled species (automatically obscured coords) was the same as the background of an observation of a common species and then visiting that location to poach those imperiled species. I also obscured the coordinates of observations I made with my personal phone because I didn’t want randos to be able to use those observations to identify our study sites.

26

I’m concerned about someone wanting to observe the organism knowing that they need to get permission to enter someone’s back yard and that they need to ask for the gate code if any.

tiwane 28

Let’s keep things focused on iNat obsevations on private land, not broader topics such as the existence of private land in the first place. Private land currently exists, and there are differing views on what to do about observations made on it.

4 Likes
29

A private land owner might own the plants on the property, but biodiversity and biodiversity data are public goods. I don’t think that a private property owner has the right to suppress the publication of biodiversity data, as this would restrict the use of biodiversity and its data for everybody.

A USAmerican lawyer might tell you something else… laws do differ widely depending where you are.

30

if you’re concerned, i’d suggest expressing your concern to the landowner and seeing if they’d prefer you handle observations on their land in a different way. there’s a decent chance they’d be happy with what’s being conveyed via the observations if the invasive ivy is spreading onto their lot via a neighboring property.

31

To be clear, by the way, I meant this in a broad way. If individual people prefer to mark their observations on private land as “obscured” then that’s your right, of course! I just meant when providing guidance to others – there are plenty of reasons to mark an observation as “obscured”, but I would argue against generally advising others to obscure observations solely because they are on private land.

32

When I was an agency biologist, we had pretty strict regulations about documenting any organism on private land and disseminating that information publicly. As a private citizen, I’m not so restricted. However, I try to respect the wishes of landowners and even if I don’t know what their preference is, I obscure observations from locations on these lands. I also obscure observations from my own property.

33

I guess I’m maybe also a bit confused about what the scope of “private lands” is in this conversation, and what the purpose is of obscuring these observations. I have obscured observations around my home where the big cluster of them on the map would make it exceedingly obvious where I live, but I would guess that about half of my observations are on private land – along sidewalks (sometimes at the edges of front yards), inside businesses, in cemeteries, in parking lots, around university campuses, on restricted-access hiking trails, etc. None of these are obscured. Would you obscure all of these observations? Why?

34

No… that would be taking things too far, in my view. Many of what you’re describing are quasi-public spaces (along a sidewalk, cemeteries, universities, etc). What you are not describing is in a backyard, behind a locked gate, where an owner potentially spends quiet time with a family. If someone wants to make open obs in their own backyard, that’s fine. If I go visit them, it’s polite to ask. I also think it’s nice if they extend grace if I forget to ask.

35

Sidewalks are usually in the right of way (at least the ones parallel to streets), which are usually public (though private rights of way exist). I’ve also made some observations at gas stations, which are private but accessible to anyone with a car. In the course of surveying, though, I have made observations in and behind a fenced (but not locked) back yard. Some 9 to 12 hours ago I observed a small tuliptree near a traverse point I placed in the back yard. The back corners (which finding is my job) are behind the fence and behind the neighbor’s fence.

Obscuring is one thing. Another could be adding a note that it’s in a gated community, behind a fence, or whatever. Is there such an annotation?

36

You could create an ‘Observation Field’ of your choice.

37

I think in your case this is the biggest issue. You are accessing private spaces in the course of your work, and there’s an implied confidentiality there. (Always socially and ethically, sometimes also legally.)

For a more extreme example, the water heater in this house is accessed through my bedroom closet. If I have to have a plumber out to work on it, that does not give them the right to post the contents of my closet online, with a location, so the whole world can see who’s closet this stuff is in. Maybe there’s something burglars would want to steal, an embarrassing costume, or simply evidence of my poor housekeeping skills on display. It doesn’t really matter what or whether it was anything they knew would draw unwanted attention, the issue is that they gained access to a nonpublic space as part of their work, took personal photos of it, and shared them online.

If (fictional example, I don’t have one) they posted on their social media, “I wonder what’s in this large locked safe I saw while working at this address, but it’s in a private home not accessible to the public.” and then my home got burglarized, I would absolutely be blaming the plumber as well as the burglar.

And if a surveyor posted black morels in my woods with the location public but a meaningless disclaimer about it being on private property, and this resulted in mushroom poachers descending on my woods, I would be blaming the surveyor as well as the poachers. They had no right to share private information like that.

A tulip tree is unlikely to draw trespassers (unless it’s unusually massive) but it’s still important to get permission. A more common concern would be what might show in the background. Maybe their back yard is on the junky side, their children or pets are playing in the background, their underwear is hanging on the clothesline, or another plant that would draw poachers is also visible in the photo. As long as none of that is the case, I expect permission to share the location of a tulip tree would be readily granted by most homeowners.

A tree in the front yard, visible from a public right of way, seems fair to post under the usual tradition that anything visible to the public can be photographed without permission.

38

I personally don’t obscure anything unless it’s a poaching risk or the landowner or land manager requests that I do.

That said, I do this independently and largely for fun, so if there were risk to my employment or institution then I’d likely feel differently.

Otherwise, for me the draw of iNatting is, in large part, the ability to say “this thing was living in this place at this time” and obscuring feels like it detracts from that. Especially so for underreported taxa where private lands will be the only places to “fill in the gaps” in their range, so to speak.

39

Are there any jurisdictions where you could successfully argue that a person owns the rights to the information that there is a certain organism on their private land? Because in most systems of which I am aware of, the very fact that a piece of information describes the reality means that nobody can claim the right to it (unless there are special circumstances such as national security, but that’s a very narrow issue). So I for one would be very unhappy if for example iNaturalist started automatically obscuring my observations just because they are on “private property”, whatever that even means in different parts of the world.

40

It’s incredibly rare that anyone would follow up your observations and thereby pose a risk of trespassing. Data should not be obscured unless it’s sensitive for the species.

Controversial as it is to say, asking the land owner if they give you permission to share data on their land is likely to open up consequences and disappointment. Nature deserves to be documented, especially given how things are going. Land owners in 99.9999% of cases are NOT going to find out you posted photos and data from their land, unless you alert them this is a possibility, or it’s a very particular rare species that is being monitored.

41

As I mentioned above, if you are making observations on private land as an agency employee or as a contractor for an agency, be aware of what restrictions you might be working under before you post such observations in a public place and with precise location data. Some agencies and some states have confidentiality rules and regs for documenting organisms on private property, especially those of conservation concern.

42

Sounds like I shouldn’t have a problem.

I’m not an agency employee. I’m working directly for the landowner, who contacted me. She’s fine with the pictures being on line; I sent her the links.

I once got a request for a specimen of Argiope aurantia which I had observed just outside my old home. Since it was at home, I obscured it. I had just moved and thought it was not a good idea to have him contact the landlady of the old house for permission to collect a spider.