Last updated: 14th April 2017
Our Services provide volunteers (Citizen Scientists) with a means to share information on occurrences of litter through geotagged imagery. Geotagged images have a spatial (a specific, typically centimeter-accurate GPS Lat/Long position) reference as well as a specific time-stamp (Year-month-day HH:MM:SS), which can be used to determine exactly where and when an occurrence of litter was identified- thus showing the location of a contributor at any point in time and potentially revealing information about the spatial patterns of a contributor or many contributors and revealing the location of hotspots and irregular occurrences of hazardous material such as drug-related litter (eg. needles, injecting equipment). A specific litter item can be shown individually and/or abstracted to a dynamically-sized hexagonal grid to analytically characterize the presence of litter, or abstractively perhaps even the illicit consumption of toxic substances. Once these images are shared with us, and only geotagged images can pass, the volunteer must properly attribute each image (eg. Determine x items of litter in x number of photos through the user of their Profile (https://openlittermap.com/profile) and once the image and its’ contents are attributed, each image must be submitted for crowdsourced verification. The verified images, their location and the time the image was captured will be mapped, spatially analyzed and the results, the images, the make/model of the device (which is an indication of spatial accuracy eg. iPhones (5+) are currently typically superior in spatial accuracy and temporal GPS-revisit frequency to Android) and their contents will be made public for guests or authenticated users of the website. Each image can account for only 1 point on the map which when clicked, will show the image which can be viewed in high-resolution, as well as its contents, the make and/or model of the device and although all images will be submitted anonymously by default, each contributor has the option to credit either their full name and/or unique Username or Organisation on the verifiable geotagged images they provide. We will maintain the images at our own discretion in accordance with our limited server capacity. However, images that are verified by an Admin and reach stage two verification will be deleted, allowing us to resolve greater volumes of data and keep our costs as low as possible.
This Privacy Policy describes how and when we collect, share and use your information across the website. By using this website, you authorize us to store and use your information in accordance with this privacy policy. This policy will change from time to time and we will do our best to notify you of these changes and updates once you log into the website and through our social media campaigns @OpenLitterMap (Twitter).
We do not allow for people under the age of 13 to use or register with our Services. If we discover there is personal information from or about children below this age category, we will permanently delete that information and any other associate records immediately.
Only with parental or guardian supervision may a person aged 13-17 use this website for educational purposes. With proper supervision a person in this age category may be able to involve themselves with challenging the destructive paradigm of plastic pollution and contribute to the production of geospatial knowledge that has the potential to transform public and institutional behaviour however users should take particular caution when sharing their information online or when collecting data on litter which may be detrimental to personal health. For example, drug-related litter is a highly dangerous public-health hazard and if mishandled or stepped on accidentally, could result in a life-long physical, sexual and mentally-debilitating illness, disease, infection and/or scar, which will require urgent medical treatment from a medical professional- something this website claims to hold no knowledge of. Parents may choose to show the information on drug-related litter to their adolescent children to raise awareness about the harms caused by drug-related littering the public so that further accidents can be avoided.
Please call 112, 999 or your appropriate emergency line and ask for an ambulance.
- Information you provide when you register for an account (eg. Full Name, legitimate and verifiable email address, a unique username or the organisation you are legally entitled to represent)
- The images you submit.
- The metadata associated with the images.
- The attribute information associated with each image.
- Cumulate statistics and geostatistics based on the analysis of each and all images.
- Cookies.
- Your IP address.
- The website you have come for, or are going to.
- The type of browser you are using.
- “Clickstream” data.
- How you use this website.
By submitting data to this Service, you accept and understand that the images, their contents, their location in time and space and potentially on your allowance, you may wish to be represented as the contributor of the image by full name and/or your unique username. By default, all images will be contributed anonymously.
You must choose a strong password at least 6 characters long that contains upper and lower case characters, a number and a symbol. Your password will be encrypted using the best available encryption methods and stored securely on our server. With the one exception of the map on Firefox which requires partial encryption, all of our website runs on an encrypted HTTPS network so the information you provide, including for example credit card information, is fully encrypted with SSL. In fact for credit cards we never touch your card details as we use Stripe for payments. www.stripe.com
This is a new service. We are happy to hear feedback on this service or privacy policy if you think you can offer us some advice please contact us at info@openlittermap.com