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platform-coop-toolkit / coop-map-directory-index

The Map/Directory/Index component of the Platform Cooperative Development Kit.
https://directory.platform.coop
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
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Improve processes for ensuring individual location privacy #141

Open greatislander opened 4 years ago

greatislander commented 4 years ago

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Following up on https://github.com/platform-coop-toolkit/coop-map-directory-index/issues/8#issuecomment-656346622 and https://github.com/platform-coop-toolkit/coop-map-directory-index/issues/8#issuecomment-656366210, I've created this issue to document the need to explore improvements related to privacy/obfuscation of user locations on the map when desired.

Currently, users enter an address or partial address during profile creation. It is geocoded using Here, and users are given the opportunity to adjust their location on a map view in the next step (implemented in #113).

Users may not want to be shown at their exact location. The current approach poses two problems, as identified in discussion on #8:

  1. If users omit their street address and do not adjust their map location, multiple individuals may appear at the exact same coordinates (the default/center of the city or town), which affects clustering.
  2. If users enter their street address, their precise location will be revealed unless they take time to adjust their position on the map.

Describe the solution you'd like

  1. If users have only entered the city/town and country, their location will need to be randomized slightly to prevent stacking.
  2. Better/clearer prompts to assist users in obfuscating their map location need to be developed.

Describe alternatives you've considered

I'm wondering if we reducing the maximum zoom level a bit (to the neighbourhood level rather than street level) might be a good approach to preserving individual privacy while allowing clustering. There's no use case that I can see for helping users of the directory find the personal location of other users, and for organizational profiles, their address is displayed (on the Contact tab of their profile) so if someone wants to visit a physical location they can find the addressing information needed to do so.

This would produce an effect more like this (bottom of page): https://humanmade.com/who-we-are/

Additional context

Not applicable.

dayotte commented 4 years ago

@greatislander I like the approach you suggest to reduce max zoom. In this case, if multiple entries were stacked at the same location, we could either not have any pop-up cards/names on the map (and rely on the listings instead), or design the pop-up in a similar way to the example you provided, and list multiple names in one card/pop-up (and link them to profiles). I like the latter approach. What do you think @cherylhjli, @erictheise ?