I have realized people map what is important to them in higher quantities than other things. Thus you find the areas they have mapped over the areas they don’t map. People map the areas the know more about than the areas they don’t, thus looking at edit clusters can show where people live. Finally the tag local knowledge as a source shows where someone has been. Combining these all together can be used to track people down.
Discussion
Comment from Obum on %დ %თ %წ at %ს:%წ
very salient point. absolutely try in every word…
Comment from SimonPoole on %დ %თ %წ at %ს:%წ
The OSMFToU specifically disallow that, if you have concrete evidence of this happening, please contact us at privacy@osmfoundation.org
Comment from PhysicsArmature on %დ %თ %წ at %ს:%წ
No evidence, just preemptive worry.
Comment from philippec on %დ %თ %წ at %ს:%წ
It is better that people map the area they know. I have bad experiences with foreigners.
Comment from LCeT on %დ %თ %წ at %ს:%წ
Totally correct, and the nice thing is OSM doesn’t enforce a real-name policy and has a tolerance for multi-accounts: osm.wiki/OpenStreetMap_account#Account_Names_and_Multi_Account_Policies
Comment from PhysicsArmature on %დ %თ %წ at %ს:%წ
@LCeT, just me being great at worrying.
Comment from BCNorwich on %დ %თ %წ at %ს:%წ
I usually cut out the pieces of a GPS trace around my home before uploading it. Thus folk can only roughly know where I am which I don’t mind.
Comment from amapanda ᚛ᚐᚋᚐᚅᚇᚐ᚜ 🏳️🌈 on %დ %თ %წ at %ს:%წ
Geofabrik provides regional extracts of OSM data. If you aren’t logged into OSM, you can only get versions without metadata like usernames.