I feel it is important to clarify that HOT is great at attracting OSM contributors and motivating them. We are still talking about OSM data here.
Similar as it wouldn’t be good for Facebook to grab all credit for OSM data, it wouldn’t be good for HOT to do so.
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Without further information from Mapillary or Facebook there is simply not enough information to know in what part privacy was a subject in the takeover…
Without dialogue the conversation ends before it starts…
its (too) quiet from both parties
In the meantime
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I heard that the number is closer to 100.000 now
Ouch. It dawned on me that with 8 million images you were in the 8th spot worldwide.
That’s a big loss of unique imagery - nobody can go back in time and capture that.
Perhaps more sad is that Mapillary has all gone silent, and nobody even tried to discuss your concerns.
Well, if someone considers removing his/her own imagery after Mapillary acquisition, maybe you could at least consider transferring your imagery to OSC first?
There is a great transfer tool available, works like a charm, no need to leave your computer up and running, takes 5 minutes to set things up and all the rest will be done on the server side.
http://mapillary.trydiscourse.com/t/mapillary-openstreetcam-synchronization-tool/4246
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Not that I am reading the entire thread… Just received a stack of messages from the Facebook Community Bot about mapillary_tools github pull requests now needing to sign a Contributor License Agreement.
I havent made a pull request. I just got to see all of them… (sigh)
Me too, long ago I did a pull request for my Create BookmarkletToGoogleMaps which was never accepted, as far as I understand.
I was wondering, now that the licence model has changed… anyone can now use the imagery, yes?
Does this include Google? Could they now also integrate all the 360 imagery taken to enhance their streetview?
I am more worried about that than about the FB takeover.
So the following can use it =
- the company that did not allow me to use their network to upload
- the tax administration
- the Chinese army
- a better Mapillary lookalike.
Yes and no. All images are processed by Mapillary (e.g. contain Mapillary watermarks), but I guess they could pull map data they don’t have. With all due respect to Mapillary and contributors, myself include, it’s likely Google already has all this data from the phone in your pocket!
That is why I own an iPhone… with Apple I’m the client… with Google I’m the product…
With 360 imagery, have you seen where the Mapillary logo is? Have you seen what Google does with the nadir?.. need I say more?
They already probably know more about me then I’dd like… but I refuse to ignore the issue just because they already know too much…
We’re here! A bit overwhelmed and under-resourced at the moment, but we’re here. As you can imagine, there is a bit of a transitioning phase for a few months as we integrate within Facebook. A big part of this has been improving privacy even further.
There are concerns that Facebook is interested in identifying faces. This is simply not the case. We’re blurring faces and license plates as soon as images hit our servers and we’re looking at other things we can do to assure privacy is protected. The features of interest are map related such as crosswalks, curbs, sidewalks, bicycle parking etc.
There has also been an extensive review of all the third party services we use to remove any issues that might result around privacy. While Mapillary has always been committed to privacy, we now have the resources and expertise of Facebook to accelerate those efforts.
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This is actually far from the reality. Data for Good is something Facebook collaborates closely with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap and OpenStreetMap more broadly on. See the current Microgrants Program with HOT for example.
The idea is not to replace OSM in anyway, but to overlay OSM data with other data layers that might be useful for humanitarian purposes. My own country was devastated by bushfires earlier in the year, yay 2020 
. Data for Good maps were helpful for authorities to see the general areas where people were located and plan evacuations accordingly.
Population density maps and electrical grid distribution maps are other example where OSM data can be overlaid with additional datasets to assist decision making. HOT is regularly working on such collaborations.
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You forgot to mention that Mapillary keeps the unblurred version of all photos also.
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Hi Eduardo,
Thank you for responding. Privacy is an issue, and for me an extremely important one.
This is good to read, but… Facebook has a very poor track record when it comes to Privacy… I’m working on a project where privacy is an issue… and above all, it’s a project I’m building and I want to build a system that will have the highest possible standing in that regard. And the thing is that the moment I would mention “it uses a part owned by Facebook” I’dd get into a position where I would need to defend myself… For a new service that is like starting the soccer match where the competition starts with two goals to zero for me…
So my standing in this subject might be a bit on the extreme, but I am quite certain there are more contributors out there that have this unsettling feeling since FaceBook acquired Mapillary … is Mapillary going to be just an other tool to gobble up more (meta)data… to get maximum results for FB-advertising?
I’ve learnt not to speak for others, so I’ll stick with “me” henceforth 
Don’t get me wrong, what you have built at Mapillary is absolutely great work… it’s just, how can you convince me that FaceBook can not be able to access faces & licence plates (ever)? How can you convince me that FaceBook wil not (start to) gobble up (meta)data from Mapillary to build better profiles of their FaceBook/Instagram users?
And is it now so that with publishing imagery on Mapillary I make imagery “public domain”? All and everyone will be allowed to use data? So that means Google can gobble up all the 360 imagery they want to improve their coverage? Same goes for all and any commercial company or tiranic government that sees something valuable in there. There is no “brake” in there anywhere?
These are all points that worry me greatly…
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I probably can’t convince you of any of that. Facebook has received a lot of scrutiny over privacy in recent years, and rightly so. A positive consequence of this is that there is now extensive focus on privacy throughout the organisation. There are extensive controls on where and how data is stored, and who has access to it.
Mapillary is a tool for making better maps. It’s as simple as that. If Facebook was interested in personal data, it would not make sense to acquire Mapillary.
Images on Mapillary are still available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, same as they were before. Commercial licenses are being provided for local council, departments of transport, and GIS professionals who have a use for the map data. Again this is the same as before, but commercial licenses are now free.
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One idea for improvement: it is technically possible to edit JPEG files losslessly to some extent: specifically, single 8x8 blocks can be changed at will without quality affecting recompression. So one could just blur those blocks in the original images and save the blurred version only. Bonus: create a small file with the changes as an “unblur-diff”, and store that somewhere much safer, e.g. give that to the user.
I was still brewing on an answer A bit sharpener formulated then I would have, but the response of @GITNE says it all.
After re reading my post, I agree, that is the only honest answer you can give, I sincerely thank you for giving it.
If you need a president of the foundation, I am your man $$$