This morning on Pinterest I came across a fellow Postcrossing member who posts pictures of her mail art on official Postcrossing cards there. It does include the back of postcards, which I guess is fine when the address is completely covered. Unfortunately there are images where it is not hard to guess the address, and on many images you can see the receipient’s full name.
I suspect that not everyone is fine with this and maybe they were not asked…
It is probably not the only person who does this, so this case is just an example. My question is what, if anything, should be done about it?
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Yuck, I’d look for a way to punish these people who don’t follow the site’s rules. Where has the privacy gone?
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First, take down the picture because now I can find the sender address.
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You can report the pin for a privacy violation and hopefully Pinterest will take action. Their community guidelines say they don’t allow content that reveals ‘Private contact information and addresses’.
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If I noticed something like this, I’d inform the Postcrossing team. They can identify the member via the ID and sensibilize her / him that showing addresses of / personal information about other members is a violation of privacy and should not be done.
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I have a different view on this. The postcard is the property of the person who received it; they are free to do whatever they want with the card. Now, situations arise where a member might choose to trade, sell or display card(s)…as I have done every once in awhile. In those cases, I completely obscure the Member ID with a black marker. That is the one thing you could suggest to this person.
The Postcrossing site rules prohibit the display of names and addresses. Pinterest, eBay and other platforms…those rules don’t generally apply.
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As @anon12838227 correctly says, Pinterest’s community guidelines do not allow the publication of private contact information.
In many cases, trades involve cards with my own address on them, where I can actively choose to share it. Publishing cards I send out with the recipient’s address on it without their consent is a violation of German privacy law, which has become a lot stricter in the past few years than it used to be.
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@anon95027724 in this case it is the sender who posted the photos. Maybe this is just my German perspective, but I really don’t think the sender has the right to display the receipient’s name or address anywhere.
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That’s not exactly the rule. The postcrossing rules prohibit to publish any part of the written side of a postcard.
Blockquote The addresses given to you are private information and can only be used for Postcrossing purposes. Do not share them with anyone or make them public on the internet. This also applies to what is written on the postcards you have received, so please do not scan it.
It does not only say “don’t publish the name or adress” but also “don’t publish what is written on the card”.
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Have you tried reaching out directly to him/her? Quite possibly he/she never considered the privacy aspect and if you politely point out that some people might not want to be made public, he/she would thank you for your concern, take them down and refrain from future privacy violations.
I’d only go to the next level if the direct approach fails. We all need to educate each other at some point, and people will often appreciate it if you approach them with thoughtfulness without judgement.
Best regards,
Nancy
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The picture is still seen in the editing history, because it is not possible to delete it complete.
I would like to ask every user in such a case to flag the post, select “someting else” and ask for the image to be deleted in the text box…
I have flagged it now.
Can you put the link up please?
I would contact Postcrossing admins.
I think it is good to take the picture down, but I was able to see it and to me it looks innocent but still wrong. It seems like the person in question is intentionally obscuring part of the address and thinks that is enough to protect the recipient’s privacy. Unfortunately, in this day and age the full address can easily be figured out from what is still visible.
I wouldn’t confront the person myself because you can’t be sure what the reaction will be, no matter how well-intentioned both parties are. The admins have seen it all, and can guide the person from a professional perspective.
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Sure, here it is:
https://www.postcrossing.com/about/guidelines
Almost all the way down to the end of the page.
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► We are saying the same thing; the name and address appear on the written side - not the picture side - of the card.
►his would apply to addresses you draw - not specifically the cards you receive.
Thank you for clarifying that. Yes, in that case it would be inappropriate.
If you read closely what I have quoted from the guidelines, you can see that it does apply to received cards.
And this rule seems totally logical to me:
Don’t show around the address you’ve been given for the sole purpose to write a postcard to this person. And don’t show around the text another person has written to you, because you’re not the originator of this text, and the other person wrote the text for you & didn’t consent to be published on social media.
Everybody can show around his own address - and his own text on a postcard to be sent, but in my opinion only if the text doesn’t refer to personal information of the receiver. (Even if members share personal information in their profiles, the profiles can only be visible to other members, not the whole internet.)
So you never should scan the whole written side of a postcard - at maximum only half of it.
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