I don’t know if there’s already a forum post about this, but I was wondering if observations containing photos of other people and/or their pets be flagged if the person photographed did not give consent for the photo to be taken or uploaded?
If so, what should these observations be flagged as? Would this fall under copyright infringement or some other flag category?
tiwane iNaturalist Staff
Thanks for bringing this up, @insectobserver123. I agree it happens and I’ve removed photos and descriptions for clear cases of bullying or harassment that have been reported to help@inaturalist.org. If you see a clear case of it, please email - currently that’s the best way to get a staff member’s attention.
I’d be OK with a photo flag that hides a photo if it’s inappropriate (eg human nudity) or harassment. Tough to define, but when it comes to photos of just humans, as opposed to a photo of someone holding a fish, would probably be OK to err on the side of hiding.
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/human-observations-in-schools/65078/2
For pets – mark as Captive = Casual.
There’s no way to assess consent consistently from an iNaturalist observation. It’s not a good criterion for making a curatorial decision.
If there’s evidence that the photo is being used to insult, harass, make fun of someone (insulting ID, comment, description, notes, annotations, etc.) please flag.
what about children which are proudly presented (assuming) by their parents?
For me – small hand displaying A Bug = engagement with nature !
Proud picture of a kid, and that black spot might be a bug, not what iNat is about, but I move on silently. We have lots of pictures with kids from scouts on CNC or GSB, or school classes. So long as the child is not angry, unhappy, trying to hide – I guess it is OK ?
Should photos of people or their pets be flagged if there is no consent?
Consent for pets to appear is irrelevant in and of itself. Consent only applies to human beings themselves. So if the pet is the only subject of the photo then consent in that sense does not matter at all.
There might not be permission for the photograph to be used in a particular way if it was taken on private property, but that’s not the same thing as consent from the subject(s) of the photo.
Also, as others have noted, by definition an observation of a pet animal that has not escaped would be an observation of a captive animal and thus should be marked casual.
When I make an obs that has people I don’t know in the background I obscure their faces to protect their privacy. Fingers crossed this will prevent me being sued.
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/274470042