When it comes to sharing locations of observations on iNatualist I tend to be cautious. When I observe something at my home or the homes of friends and family or even places I frequent, I just have the location set to the city it was found in. I’m curious about how safe it is to have specific locations shown in iNaturalist. Of course, this is the internet, and anything can happen. However, I was wondering if there have been any incidents due to locations of observations being made public. What is the likelihood of our personal safety being threatened by having observations with locations tied to our homes, workplaces, etc?
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You’re absolutely correct on that front. For me, I always go by what I’m most comfortable with. This really does vary by who you’re talking with, but I always mark observations made at home/my neighborhood as obscured for my own wellbeing. I’m not aware of any specific safety incidents (other than potential poachers using iNat coordinates to locate a rare species, which iNat by in large tends to automatically obscure regardless), but better safe than sorry.
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I’m not aware of specific personal safety incidents but it’s definitely a concern just because these are public locations of where you go, especially if you have regular spots. On iNat I obscure things around my house or friends’/familys’ houses, and the like.
However, I would say that iNat isn’t the only place you’ll have to worry about sharing locations. A while ago, when a rare bird showed up in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, thieves monitored birding groups online, went there, and robbed them of their expensive gear.
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Please, if you want to make a location non-obvious, use “Obscured” rather than “Private. “Obscured” smears the possible location out over a latitude-longitude rectangle, I think about 14 x 14 miles near the equator, less as you go north. This is still useful for some purposes. “Private” completely hides the location; we identifiers don’t even know what continent it’s on. Useless, except to the observer himself.
An alternative is to choose a location nearby and use a moderately large accuracy circle.
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An alternative question to ask when obscuring locations is how useful is the data when the location lacks precision. I coordinate Lepidoptera records for part of Gloucestershire, UK. Some of the records I receive are from iNaturalist where an observation has Research Grade status.
Any record with a location that cannot be accurately placed within a 1 km grid square is ignored. For example, a record obscured to a location somewhere in the town of Cheltenham (area = 47 square km) is of very little value, certainly for conservation purposes.
As a rule of thumb, British biological recording works on the basis of geographical locations based on Ordnance Survey 1 km grid references. Vague locations are accepted where there are special circumstances regarding the organism but not the observer.
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You mean they stole gear from vehicles or walked up to the birders and stole from off of them? I’ve sometimes wondered if carrying around a couple thousand dollars worth of camera gear might result in me being mugged.
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You mean Private.
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Damn! Thanks. Fixed.
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The latter.
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There’s always a trade-off between security and convenience. The most secure thing (living in a cave in the mountains) is the least convenient. You have to draw that line (between security and convenience) for yourself. Each of us might make a slightly different call on that.
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My identity is easy enough to figure out by my observations, so I went the route of including my name and the nature center that I work at on my profile. If it’s obvious anyway, I gain more by having contacts in the field able to find me, and I don’t have a false sense of security of feeling more anonymous than I really am. With that, my other ‘rules’ are
-Obscure the location of any observation from anywhere I “live” or routinely spend the night.
-Obscure private residence of friends and family on a case by case basis.
-I do not auto upload. This is really more about cell service and battery life, but I don’t provide my location in real time while in remote areas by myself.
I have not had any iNaturalist specific issues, but I have had enough experiences where I’ve had to lock down data from other platforms. I don’t live in fear, but I am reasonably cautious.
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Not posting during travel can be a good precaution. Keeps the house safe while we were gone. This principle did lead to a frustrating week and a half recently while I was out seeing great things and couldn’t post them in a timely way. Getting home was a relief in several ways.
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I used to obscure records around my house but I realized that if someone wanted to hunt me down there are easier ways to do it, for example in my state (North Carolina) my voter registration is public record and 2 seconds on a state website will give you my full street address. I do normally take a couple precautions such as never posting my records while I am still in the field and waiting until the end of long trips to post all my records at once when I get home.
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Internet safety in general: Do not post where you currently are. Do not post where you are going to be or when. There is less risk in posting where you have been, but if it is somewhere you go on a regular schedule, bad actors can catch on. Try not to make your habits known in public forums.
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Some companies have incompetent or outdated systems, and your data gets stolen
All companies which harbour your data, even with competent and current systems, are candidates for leaking your information.
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I would honestly be more concerned about getting in a car accident on the way to Inatting than having my data being used against me. Anyone can look me up and know where I go to college without knowing about Inat.
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From “For What It’s Worth”
… Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away
… We better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down
Lyrics by Stephen Stills
First recorded by Buffalo Springfield on December 5, 1966
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It is easy to look up my who and where. I obscure now so I don’t have to do it later. Eventually I will sell this and the next guy doesn’t need the possible attention.
And thanks for the earworm, wayne_j, it has always been a favorite!
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it’s absolutely a real concern. I’ve been doxxed before.
It’s a bit too late for me to completely scrub my internet presence, but I do always obscure observations at home and sometimes in the field.
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Typical day for a group of birders.
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