Here’s what other members and visitors can see on your observations and profile, and what stays private.
Always Visible on Your Observations
- Your display name and avatar, linked to your public profile
- The species, with its scientific and common names
- The date of the observation
- Your photos, with their licence
- Habitat, substrate and associates
- Your notes
- How sure you were of the ID (Certain, Likely or Possible)
- The status: Confirmed or Unconfirmed
- Comments, agreements and ID suggestions
Location, by Privacy Setting
| Open | Obscured | Private | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Map | Exact pin | Approximate pin | Not shown |
| Coordinates | Shown | Hidden | Hidden |
| Address | Shown | General area only | Hidden |
| what3words | Shown | Hidden | Hidden |
| Vice county | Shown | Shown | Hidden |
Your Public Profile
Your public profile shows your recording stats, recent observations, top species, contributions, habitats, vice counties and badges. You can turn it off in Settings. See Your Dashboard and Public Profile.
Never Shown to Other Members
- Your email address and password
- Your favourites
- Your activity feed and iNaturalist connection
- Exact locations of Obscured and Private observations (only you, Identifiers and administrators can see them)
- Exact locations of protected species, which are automatically obscured or hidden. See Protected Species and Location Privacy
Photo Data
If an observation is Private, GPS data is removed from its photos when they’re stored. For Open and Obscured observations, your photos are stored as uploaded, and your privacy setting controls the location shown on the observation. If you’d rather your photos never contain a location, turn off location tagging in your phone’s camera settings.
Privacy Tips
- Keep recognisable landmarks, house numbers or signs out of photos of sensitive sites.
- Don’t describe the exact spot in your notes if the location is Obscured or Private.
- Use Obscured or Private for finds at or near your home.
iNaturalist
If you export to iNaturalist, you choose a separate privacy setting for iNaturalist. See Understanding iNaturalist Geoprivacy.