What we keep, and what we never show
Earth Swarm needs precise evidence to prove nature is recovering. It publishes far less than it holds, on purpose.
What a find contains
- A photo, cropped to the subject, downscaled and stripped of every EXIF field. A photo with a face in it is refused on the phone.
- The precise position where it was taken and how accurate the phone said it was.
- The time, the model's species suggestions and the surveyor's own answer.
- An optional short note from the surveyor, which is never published.
- A signature and a link to the find before it, which prove the record has not been changed.
All of it is sealed on the phone to Earth Swarm's key. The Stringer network that pays surveyors sees only a receipt: hashes, a time and a signature. It never holds the photo, the species or the position.
What is published, and how coarsely
| Who | Normal species | Sensitive species | Photos |
|---|---|---|---|
| This website and the public API | 0.01 degree grid, about 1 km | 0.2 degree grid, about 20 km | Validated finds of species that are not sensitive |
| Research and commercial keys | 0.001 degree grid, about 100 m | 0.2 degree grid | As above |
| Verifiers, under agreement | Full precision | Full precision | All, to audit the evidence |
Only validated finds are published, and never sooner than 72 hours after they were made. Positions are snapped to the centre of a grid cell, so a published point says nothing finer than the cell.
Surveyors are never shown live
This site never shows where a person is or was today. There is no dot per person, no surveyor name, no mission and no plot position. The agent's project diary says that a survey was planned, never where or when a surveyor will be.
Sensitive species
Published coordinates can lead people to nests, setts, roosts and rare plants. Species on the national recording schemes' sensitive lists are only ever shown at the coarse grid, without photos, to every tier except verifiers. If any species named on a find is sensitive, the whole find is treated as sensitive.
How long we keep it
Evidence for a credit must last as long as the credit, often decades, so validated finds and their receipts are kept for the credit term. A find can still be erased on request; the monitoring period's published root is unaffected, because it holds only hashes.
Research applications and commission requests are kept to decide on them and to stay in touch about them.
Contact details for data requests will be published here before surveys begin.
This website
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