IMO it’s useless archiving the images if they’d have no geolocation. They were taken specifically for the purpose to be attached to a location and be viewed on a map, by mappers for example. Without geotags they’re just random scenery pictures to me.
That is what I said.
Ooh yeah now I’ve got you.
I misunderstood your “That would be very bad” (as in it would be bad if the images did have geolocation attached). Sorry.
I don’t think it’s possible to store all those pictures locally. I see that filipc has contributed over 12,8 million photo’s. If every photo is around 12 MP or 36 MB storage room, than you need 460 terrabyte storage. Although there is probably some compression in place.
The images I’ve downloaded are between 1.5 and 4 MB large, varying by phone (I’ve taken pics with Galaxy S7, LG G6, P20 Pro and Mi 9 all with the Mapillary app plus a few 360 images).
If we’re taking 2.7MB as the average, at 12.8m images that would be 34.5 TB. Still a lot but downloading from Mapillary and uploading somewhere else would be doable over time, with a 4-8TB drive you’d need 4-9 runs.
If he actually wants to archive them locally then yeah, he will need a few big drives.
I’m lucky I only have 339k images so far. They all fit in a 1TB drive.
What a disaster this is… I have spent hundreds of hours building something great that leans on Mapillary for quite a bit if the experiences. And now I read this.
With what I am building privacy is a serious thing… This seriously ruins my plans… 
I compress all my files to 1.5 Mb, since its an archive from the past with limited emotional value with as main target to facilitate mapping and watch my bicycle trips on a map. (Maybe I will never find an alternative to upload these files). They are not family pictures…
Yes, if I were to keep them I’d compress them too I think. However my current plan is to just reupload everything on OSC so I’ll just have them on my pc temporarily.
I am thinking more of an institute as the National Archive or Library or Geographical Institute to donate the pictures to.
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That is a good idea actually!
I’ve thought about uploading to archive.org too.
But I assume you’d have to ask them before; currently there are 240k community images, adding hundreds of thousands (or in your case, 12 millions!) of pictures would just flood the image archive.
That gives a “Raw image dump” feeling… there is much added value with the whole thing projected (correctly) on a map…
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Ok, my heart’s rate has gone down now, breath in, breath out… I found the original post announcing this, it’s a good read:
What I am missing is a (good & trustworthy) story concerning privacy… I trusted Mapillary with this… I don’t trust Facebook with (my) privacy. In this deal… is there anything there that could change my trust issues in this matter?
When Facebook will be bought by the Chinese, then I will worry.
Facebook’s interest in the imagery and data is specifically for mapping purposes and especially for contributing to OpenStreetMap. The main metadata of interest is the location of that image, the time it was taken, and the make and model of the camera. This is all information that Mapillary has collected and utilised to build better tools.
The only difference now is that Facebook is actively reliant upon and improving OpenStreetMap. This means more emphasis on building tools and utilising imagery and data that support this effort.
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I see so many problems with OSM that I would not mind if FB started a fresh map.
At least you get to fix things quickly in OSM. Took me years to get blatant errors fixed in Google maps!
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What are the problems you see? I think it’s a marvelous project.
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Excuse me? Maps should be public domain and not the “property” of one company anywhere. Example, Google shows different maps in different country’s to not upset their (potential) customers/advertisers/users…:
Things like that are simply horrid, seated one the simple principle: don’t offend, make money. The truth isn’t always easy, don’t hide from it, face it.
@eneerhut, thank you for responding (quickly)!
Normally I would send personal messages with “sensitive subjects”, but I think it is important others can read along. I hope It helps to get (more) people “on the same page”.
Reading your response and the press release of @jesolem again I gather that FB sees value in maps. In trying to understand why, I read that good maps have value for their marketplace platform and I found this video:
That I did not know, that is a way where FB can actually really help. Up until now I have had the distinct impression that FB emphasizes extremes and therefore tends to devide more then it unites. I’m actually impressed that they found a way where FB can genuinely “do good”.
OK, thus, FB sees the benefits of improving maps and see the (greater) value in using & improving OSM, good.
In that goal FB sees the benefits in partnering up with Mapillary… ok, I tend to understand that. But FB “bought” Mapillary, did they not? I have a bunch of questions, but I think I can sum up a load of detail questions by just one word: privacy
My main concern is that I do not want, in any case, ever, what so ever, that imagery I entrust to Mapillary gets abused for face recognition or car/licence plate detection & recognition etc… Combine this with the beyond horrible idea of the combination with time & location…
I understand that Mapillary needs to keep the original image on file in the case of erroneous blurs, I think that I need to hear/read that Mapillary wil not, in no case, ever, with the only exception of a court order share an original image.
The imagery I uploaded contains a face or a license plate here and there. This can not always be avoided. I trusted Mapillary blurring them out correctly and trust Mapillary not (ab)using this data. Now, with this development with FB I read your terms again:
2.2: You hereby waive any moral […] rights you may have (including […] integrity, privacy, […]) in your Content that would otherwise preclude us from […] using, copying or distributing, in accordance with these Terms, your Content.
2.4: You agree not to upload […] infringement of the intellectual property […] or violation of a right of privacy […] or divulges other people’s private or personally identifiable information without their express authorization and permission
When I read the text snippets above, FB (and Mapillary) could do exactly what I don’t want and when someone takes legal action I, the uploader of the image, am the one that’s screwed?
I searched your terms for a part where it states that any personally identifiable sections of uploaded images are obscured/blurred out to safeguard privacy to the best of the ability of Mapillary, but that Mapillary can not be held accountable… or something to that scope… but I could not find it.
As I wrote earlier I trusted Mapillary not to misuse my additions to the Mapillary project. The reputation of FB is not as goed as that of Mapillary… afaik… Is there anything you can devulge cencerning this?
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Thanks for the detailed reaction, I agree a lot with your reactions and feelings.
Here are a few of my thoughts after reading your reaction:
To be honest, I intensely dislike that “Facebook Data for Good” video. What Facebook is showing there is their ambition to drag both victims and helpers away from already available, often free and open, resources and instead lock them into their services. Every time they mention “Facebook maps” in that video, they are actually talking about OpenStreetMap with their (thin) Facebook skin applied over it. I don’t know if you are familiar with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (https://www.hotosm.org/), they have long been providing free and open mapping data “for good” in partnership with organisations like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.
As far as privacy is concerned, Facebook and Mapillary are both bound by the same laws (and have the same freedom) in this respect. Yes, you as an uploader are (and have always been) responsible for following the local laws in what you upload. However, with regard to masking license plates and faces, the general laws there are concerned with hosting/publishing of information (that is, Mapillary is responsible), not if you took a photos of it and/or stored that photo somewhere. However, if for example you took a photo of a state secret and uploaded that to Mapillary, then you could well be held responsible.
Reputation and trust are of course very important emotional factors, but I don’t think they make much difference in actuality. Mapillary could well be doing much worse things than Facebook has done, but gotten away with it unnoticed because they are a much smaller company without all the public scrutiny.
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