To provide some context, there was a conversation related to this on github a few months ago, and I had a brief email conversation after that. At the time I was told that Ontario was likely one of the provinces which was going to obscure all rare species.
Now, this was never confirmed, and things could have changed since, but I’m not concerned about this for no reason.
Don’t get me wrong, I have extremely high regard for the people at NHIC (didn’t realize that was literally the same as the CDC). Mike, more than anyone else, is why I’m a naturalist and not just a birder! But the incentives in place for NHIC seem to be extremely one-sided. If they un-obscure something, and it ends up causing issues, the blame will now fall squarely on them. Whereas the positive effects will be diffuse and harder to identify and will never really be connected back. And there’s also the fact that NHIC already does have easy access to most records even if they are obscured, meaning that they don’t necessarily see the downsides.
If the collection of NHIC employees privately and secretly put together a list of what should be obscured, I would trust it. But if the list is going to be directly connected to the organisation, I see a lot of potential issues that will lead to way too many things being obscured. Maybe they won’t occur right away, and maybe they never will, but that’s where my concerns are. And last I heard was that Ontario was going to just obscure all rarities.