Privacy notice

This notice explains what personal data Imaggeo collects when you visit the site, browse the database, create an account or submit an image or video, why we collect it, how long we keep it, who we share it with, and the rights you have over it. Imaggeo is the online geosciences image and video repository of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

Last updated: 4 August 2026.

Who is responsible for your data

The data controller responsible for the processing described here is:

What personal data we collect, and why

Account and profile

When you register we store your username, email address, name and a securely hashed password so that you can sign in and we can contact you about your account and your submissions. Your profile can also hold optional details you choose to add: your affiliation, city, country, a short description of yourself and an avatar image. If you sign in through a third-party account (Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, X) instead, we store that provider's identifier for you and the profile information they return, such as your name and email address. The access token the provider issues is used only to complete the sign-in and is never stored against your account. While a sign-in is still in progress - while you finish registering, confirm your email address or enter a two-factor code - it is held in your session, and it goes when that session ends (see how long we keep your data, below). Accounts are for people aged 16 or over.

An account exists to interact - comment, like, favourite, collect, follow and publish - and every account therefore has a public profile page that carries the name those interactions are attributed to. That page, at an address based on your username, exists from the moment the account is created and whether or not you ever submit anything: anyone can see it, including people without an account, though we ask search engines not to list it. All the optional details on it can be left blank or removed at any time.

The profile shows your username, your name and avatar, any affiliation, city and country you added, your description of yourself, the year you joined, and counts of your activity here: uploads, the views, likes and stars they have received, and how many images you have favourited, comments you have written, and people you follow or are followed by. You can clear your description and the optional details at any time from your account settings.

Two-factor authentication is optional. If you turn it on, we store the secret your authenticator app uses to generate sign-in codes and the recovery codes that let you sign in if you lose that app. You can turn it off again at any time from your account settings, which deletes that data.

Images, videos and their metadata

When you submit media we store the file itself together with the title, description and alt text, an optional capture location shown as a single point on a map, the capture date, and technical details read from the file such as the camera brand and model, lens, exposure settings and dimensions.

We minimise what the stored file exposes: on upload we read the technical metadata into separate database fields and then strip the embedded metadata from the file itself, so images keep only the technical data needed to display them correctly (orientation, colour profile and, for panorama and HDR images, the corresponding viewer information) and videos are re-saved without embedded tags. Any precise coordinates survive only as the single map point you can edit or remove, and the original file name, which can contain personal information, is cleared once the item is published.

Publishing media names you as its author: your name, and any affiliation, city, country and avatar on your profile, are shown as the credit. You agree to this when you submit, and it cannot be switched off for an item once it is published; the credit is also what the licence requires: every licence available on Imaggeo requires attribution of the author. Published media is distributed under a Creative Commons licence; see the copyright section of the FAQ for what that means.

When a published item is later edited, we keep a history of what changed and when, and whether the change was made by you, by our staff, or automatically. This edit history is included in your data export.

If you appear in someone else's image. Published media can show people who are recognisable but have no account here, so we never received their details from them. Whoever submits an image has to confirm, before we accept it, that every identifiable person in it either appears only incidentally - as part of a landscape, scene or gathering that is the subject of the image - or, where a person is a focus of the image, has agreed to its public sharing. Images in which a minor is identifiable as a focus of the image are not accepted. Our hosting of such images rests on our legitimate interest in scientific communication (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR), applying the recognised exceptions for incidental depiction and gatherings (§ 23 KUG). We hold no contact details for the people in an image, so informing them individually is impossible (Article 14(5)(b) GDPR); this notice is our public information to them. If you are recognisable in something published here, you can ask us to take it down or amend it: use the report link on the image, or email privacy@egu.eu.

Comments, likes, favourites, collections and follows

If you comment, your comment is shown publicly on the image page with your name and avatar, next to the time you posted it. We do not store an IP address with comments. A like is recorded against your account when you are signed in, or against your browser session when you are not, so that it can be undone. Anonymous likes are allowed; with those we also store a keyed, one-way hash of your IP address (never the address itself) to detect abuse. A like made while signed in stores no IP data at all. Favouriting an image or following another member records that relationship so we can show it back to you; if you follow someone, we email you when they publish. Your favourites are private to you unless you turn on the option to show them on your public profile, in which case anyone, including people without an account, can see every image you have favourited; you can turn that off again at any time.

You can also group images into named collections, each with an optional description. A collection is private to you unless you choose to make it public; a public collection, including its description, can be seen by anyone on the internet, including people without an account, from your public profile. Making a collection public is always your own choice, and you can make it private again at any time.

Photo competition entries and votes

If you take part in a photo competition as a voter, we collect the name, email address and EGU identifier you provide with your vote. This information is used only to prevent voter fraud, so we have to keep it for as long as voting is open and the result is being settled. You do not need an Imaggeo account to vote, and a vote is not attached to one, so it is not covered by closing an account; it is deleted on the schedule below instead. To have a vote removed sooner, email privacy@egu.eu from the address you voted with. Judges and their reviews are recorded against their accounts.

Reports about content

If you report an image, video or comment, we collect the name, email address and details you enter and email them to our staff inbox so we can look into it. We use them only to follow up on the report. Nothing is stored in the site database; the report stays in that mailbox, and we keep it and any correspondence about it while we deal with it and for a short time afterwards, so we can handle repeat reports about the same content or any follow-up, and delete it once the matter is closed.

Technical logs

Our web servers keep access logs that record the requesting IP address, the browser and operating system, the page requested, the page you came from, and the time of the request. Our mail server logs the addresses it delivers to, and the logs of our background workers can record an email address or account identifier when a task fails. We use these logs to keep the service running securely, to detect and prevent abuse, and to investigate failures.

Cookies and analytics

We keep cookies to a minimum. Browsing the gallery and viewing an image or video needs no cookie at all; a session cookie is set only when it is needed, for example when you sign in or like an image. Opening a page that carries a form, such as signing in, registering, reporting content or voting in a photo competition, sets a cookie holding a token that protects that form against cross-site request forgery; we also use a short-lived cookie to carry one-off status messages. Your light or dark theme preference is stored in your browser's local storage, not in a cookie.

For audience measurement we run our own self-hosted Matomo analytics on EGU infrastructure. It sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. Your IP address is truncated the moment it is received, so no full address is ever stored, and only the referrer host or type is recorded. Analytics data is kept for 90 days. This processing rests on our legitimate interest in understanding overall site usage (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR), without identifying individual visitors. When JavaScript is disabled, a fallback pixel counts the visit in the same way, subject to the same immediate IP truncation, and likewise sets no cookie.

Legal bases for processing

• Performance of a contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR): creating and operating the account you have asked us to provide, publishing the media you submit together with your author credit, and emailing you when a member you chose to follow publishes; those emails stop when you unfollow.
• Consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR): showing your favourites or a collection on your public profile. You turn each of these on yourself and can turn it off again at any time; withdrawing does not affect the lawfulness of anything we did on that basis beforehand.
• Legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR): keeping the service secure and reliable, preventing abuse, looking into reports about content, running a photo competition fairly, keeping server access logs, and seeing how the site is used overall, without identifying individual visitors.

You are under no statutory obligation to give us any of this data. A username, name, email address and password are needed to create an account; without them we cannot provide one. To publish media you must accept the licence terms and agree to your profile details being published as the author credit; without that we cannot accept the submission. Everything else, including your affiliation, city, country, description and avatar, is optional and can be left blank.

Who we share your data with

We do not sell your personal data. Content you publish is openly available under its Creative Commons licence and may be downloaded and reused worldwide; EGU itself is among the reusers, featuring published media on its own websites and blogs under the same licence and with the same author credit. In running the service, data may reach the following recipients:

EGU websites

The EGU website (egu.eu) fetches published media directly from Imaggeo to feature it, for example images taken near a location or past photo competition winners, together with the title, the author credit and, where the item has one, its map position. This is the same information anyone can see here.

Analytics and anti-abuse

Our self-hosted Matomo analytics and a self-hosted proof-of-work challenge (mCaptcha) shown on the sign-up and report forms, both run on EGU infrastructure.

Map providers

When a map is shown, your browser loads map tiles directly from OpenStreetMap, OpenTopoMap or Esri (ArcGIS), which therefore receive your IP address.

Social sign-in providers

If you choose social login, your chosen provider (Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, X) processes the sign-in.

Security and error reporting

Your browser sends automated reports about blocked content and failed network requests to URIports, an external reporting service based in the Netherlands. A report carries the page address and your browser details. URIports does not store the sending IP address itself, only a partial one-way hash of it and your browser details, used to group reports from the same visitor; it removes the values of any query parameters in the address, and keeps reports for at most 90 days. This reporting rests on our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Hosting

Our servers, database and media storage run on infrastructure rented from Hetzner Online GmbH in Germany. Hetzner provides and operates the hardware; it does not decide what happens to your data.

International transfers

Some of these recipients are based outside the European Economic Area. Map tiles are loaded by your browser directly from the tile provider, which therefore sees your IP address. The default map layer (OpenStreetMap) is hosted in Europe and involves no transfer outside the European Economic Area. The OpenTopoMap and ArcGIS (Esri) layers load only if you select one from the control on a map. Tiles for the ArcGIS layer are loaded from Esri, Inc. in the United States; Esri is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, so the European Commission's adequacy decision applies to this transfer (Article 45 GDPR).

Social sign-in is optional; registering with an email address is always available instead. For users in the European Economic Area, the sign-in providers act through their European entities. Where a provider transfers data to the United States, it does so under its own responsibility as an independent controller, relying on its certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework; details are in each provider's own privacy notice.

Every processor EGU engages itself is within the European Economic Area.

How long we keep your data

• Your account and any media you publish are kept while your account is open. Published images remain online under their Creative Commons licence, with your name as the credit together with any affiliation, city, country or avatar you chose to keep published, even after you close your account.
• Media you upload but leave with incomplete details is automatically deleted after about 180 days; a finished draft you never publish is kept while your account is open and removed when you close it.
• If we cannot process a file you upload, it is kept exactly as you sent it, including the metadata embedded in it, because removing that metadata is part of the processing that failed. It is never published or shown to anyone else, and it is deleted after 7 days, or sooner if you delete it or close your account.
• Your favourites, collections and the list of people you follow are kept while your account is open and are removed when you close it; a collection you had made public stops being visible at that point.
• Anonymous likes are removed after about a year, and the hashed IP address stored with them is erased after 90 days, well before the like itself. A like you make while signed in stores no IP data; it is kept while your account is open and is removed when you close it.
• Comments you post are kept for as long as the image or video they are on is online; when you close your account they are deleted or kept with your name removed, whichever you choose at the time.
• The record of edits to a published item is kept for as long as that item is online and is removed with it.
• Aggregated view statistics are anonymous; the underlying counters roll up after about 90 days.
• Your sign-in cookie is discarded when your browser closes; the matching record on our servers expires after two weeks and is deleted at the next weekly clean-up. The short-lived fingerprint used to de-duplicate view counts is discarded within an hour.
• Photo competition vote records are deleted within 7 days of voting closing.
• Server logs, including the mail and background-worker logs, are kept for security and troubleshooting for no longer than about 15 days, and most are deleted sooner.

We keep regular, encrypted backups in multiple data centres within the European Economic Area. Backups exist only so we can restore the service after a failure; they are rotated on a fixed schedule, and data deleted from our live systems leaves the backups as they rotate out. If we ever have to restore from a backup taken before your data was deleted, we re-apply the deletion as soon as we become aware of it. The confirmation email you receive when your account is closed is your dated record of the deletion; if a restore ever undoes it, forward that email to privacy@egu.eu and we will re-apply the deletion.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to its processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out on that basis before you withdrew it. No decision producing legal effects concerning you, or similarly significantly affecting you, is made about you solely by automated means.

Right to object. Where we rely on our legitimate interests (keeping the service secure, preventing abuse, looking into reports about content, running a photo competition fairly, server access logs and site usage statistics) you can object at any time on grounds relating to your particular situation. Email privacy@egu.eu and we will stop that processing unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests.

You can exercise the main rights directly:

• When signed in, download a copy of your data as a machine-readable file.
• When signed in, close your account to have your personal data removed.
• Or contact privacy@egu.eu for any of these requests.

If you have no published media, closing your account deletes it and everything in it, except any photo competition vote, which is held separately from your account and removed on the competition schedule described above. If you have published media, that media stays online under its Creative Commons licence with your name as the credit, and the account is kept only to carry that credit, with sign-in disabled: your email address, password, social logins, two-factor data, favourites, likes, collections, follows, competition judging and profile description are deleted, and at closure you can also choose to remove your avatar, affiliation, city and country. Any comments you posted are deleted or kept with your name removed, whichever you choose at closure.

As you confirm before publishing, an image or video cannot easily be removed once it has been published: it is released under an irrevocable Creative Commons licence, and we always display your credit as its author, as its Creative Commons licence requires. Under German copyright law your right to be named as the author (§ 13 UrhG) also continues to apply. In keeping published items online with their credit we rely on Article 17(3)(a) GDPR (freedom of expression and information). You can still ask us to remove an item, by the report link on the item or by emailing privacy@egu.eu, and we assess each request individually.

If you signed in with a social account, closing your account removes the link to it and the profile data we received from that provider. To fully revoke access you should also remove Imaggeo from that provider's connected-applications settings; we do not cancel the permission you granted there.

How we protect your data

Traffic to the site is encrypted with TLS, passwords are stored only as secure hashes, and IP addresses used for engagement features are stored only as keyed one-way hashes rather than in the clear. Location and camera metadata is stripped from stored media files as described above. Our administrators can access account and content data where that is necessary to operate, support or moderate the service, and only for those purposes.

Complaints

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority. As EGU is based in Munich, the competent authority is the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision (Bayerisches Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht, BayLDA). You may also contact the supervisory authority in your country of residence.