Here’s a breakdown from the Seek User Guide:
| Seek by iNaturalist | iNaturalist |
|---|---|
| Seek allows curious naturalists of all ages to earn badges and participate in challenges to observe organisms with on-screen identification using computer vision for identifications based on data from iNaturalist. | iNaturalist is an online community that allows you to share observations to discuss, identify, and create researchquality citizen science data for science and conservation. |
| Best choice if you do not want to create an account or share data, or are just getting started exploring nature | Best choice if you want to connect with others, share data, and are interested in natural history and contributing to citizen science |
| No login or account required, kidsafe. Users aged 13+ or with parent’s permission can optionally log in with their iNaturalist account and post observations to iNaturalist thorugh Seek | Users must be 13 or older to make an account |
| Seek’s identification model provides an identification in real-time on screen | iNaturalist’s identification model provides initial suggestions, but other people in the iNaturalist community help you identify and confirm your observations |
| This identification does not leave your device or require an internet connection to work | Records observations as biodiversity data that contribute to citizen science |
| No personally identifiable information is collected from users who do not log in with their iNaturalist account | Photo, location, and time are recorded with each of your observations in the iNaturalist database |