Redacted and Protected Data
Some collections redact location information data (latitude/longitude and locality description) for certain specimens from the general public. Individual specimens may have redacted location data because (a) the location is confidential (e.g., private or protected property), or (b) the taxon of the species is rare, threatened, endangered, or otherwise imperiled. Which taxa are selected for data redaction depends on the data portal, since some taxa are rare in certain places, but not in others.
Users may gain access to redacted location information by being granted "Rare Species Reader" (read-only) user permissions or through a one-time data export provided by a collection administrator. To obtain access to redacted data in your portal, please reach out to the collection's publicly listed contacts and provide them with information about yourself, your data request (including taxonomic and/or geographic scope as applicable), and indended use of the requested data. To locate the publicly listed contact(s) for a collection, follow these instructions.
How to contact a collection to request access to redacted data:
- Query the desired data in your portal (example). Records with obscured data will display this message in red: "detailed locality information protected".
- For collections with this message, locate the collection's publicly listed contact(s). You can do so by a) opening a specimen record in the search results and looking for an email address at the bottom of the record (shown below) or b) viewing the collection's profile by selecting its logo in the search results.
- Write to the listed contact(s). Clearly describe your requested data (including relevant taxa and geographic constraints) that apply as well as how the data will be used and, if applicable, cited. You can request a data export, or, if you have an account in the portal and require ongoing data access, you can ask them to apply read-only ("Rare Species Reader") permissions to your user account.
Most Symbiota portals contain community-specific data use policies. If access is granted to redacted data in any Symbiota portal, you are agreeing to continue compliance with these policies. Data usage policies can be found in most Symbiota portals by navigating to the portal's sitemap located on the main menu (example policy). It is the responsibility of all data users to locate, read, and comply with these policies.