How will my observations be shared and managed?

The Natural History Museum and Marine Conservation Society are committed to open access and open science - an approach which maximises the use and impact of the environmental observations you collect.

We will use your observations for research purposes, and they will be made openly available so that anyone can explore, download and reuse the data for their own research.

Your data will be shared using a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license, which means that anyone can use the data but they must credit where it came from. 

When you enter your observations and photos on this website, you are saying that: 

(a)  the content is yours, or you have the permission of the owner to agree to this usage, and

(b) you agree that the content can be used on this site, and

(c) you agree that your wildlife observations can be made publicly available for wider use.

All data, including environmental observations, personal and demographic data, are stored in the Biological Records Centre's Data Warehouse in accordance with Data Protection Regulations.  From there they will be made available to the Natural History Museum, Marine Conservation Society, all National Recording Schemes and Societies and all Local Environmental Record Centres. Ultimately they will be passed on to the National Biodiversity Network Atlas - the data holding for all wildlife observations in the UK. The Big Seaweed Search dataset will also be made available via the Natural History Museum's Data Portal where we share all our collections and research data. Your name will be stored as part of the biological record and may be made publicly available along with the species name, date and location of the record. Your contact details and any demographic information you may have given (age, ethnicity, etc) will NOT be shared in this way.

Your contact details and any demographic data you entered will be held in the Biological Records Centre's Data Warehouse and will be made available to the Natural History Museum and Marine Conservation Society, but will not be passed on to any third parties without your permission. Demographic data are stored anonymously, separate to any other data you entered.

Sharing wildlife records in this way ensures they are as useful as possible, both for research and for decision making about protecting the natural environment, so thank you for supporting us in this endeavour.

You can access the Museum's full privacy statement here.