YOUR COLLECTION, YOUR CHOICE

Your photos and observations.

Using KYTE without an account

Photos, drafts and tree visits stay in this browser on this device. Nearby tree records are downloaded as you explore. Export your visits to keep a separate copy; clearing browser storage removes the local collection.

Signing in with Google

Google verifies your sign-in. KYTE stores an account identifier and the profile information Google provides, including your name and verified email when available. Your Google password is never sent to KYTE. Signed-in visits and their original photos are backed up on the KYTE host so you can open them on another device.

Guest visits stay separate until you choose to bring them into your account. Signing out returns to this device’s guest collection. The last signed-in account’s cached collection also remains available when that device is offline. Signing out returns to the guest collection; sign in online again to reopen an account after signing out.

Sharing with ALTO

Sharing a visit is optional. Shared visits give ALTO reviewers access to your original photos, tree position, observations, measurements and capture metadata. Original files may contain the camera location, date, direction and device details. The name or initials you enter on the visit are included; your account email is not displayed in the research inbox.

ALTO uses contributed observations to investigate tree identity, dimensions and changes over time, and to assess and improve its models. A submitted observation enters review before any change to the published inventory. Once a reviewer accepts a visit, its photographs (re-encoded without camera metadata) and notes appear on that tree’s page in ALTO; your name and account are never shown. Stopping sharing takes them down within minutes.

You can stop sharing a visit from its tree page. This removes access through the research inbox once your account syncs. It cannot recall copies a reviewer has already exported. Offline changes take effect on the server when a connection returns.

Keeping or removing your data

You can download original photos or export visits from My Trees. Account deletion removes the server’s account, photographs, visits and review records and this account’s cache on the device used to delete it. Other devices may retain offline copies; clear those device copies separately. Exported copies and the guest collection remain with their holders.

Sharing without an account

If you send a visit to ALTO without signing in, KYTE gives this device an account with nobody attached to it. We do not ask for your name, your email or any sign-in, and none of those are stored. What is sent is the photographs, your notes, and where the tree is.

Be aware of what the location means. A photograph of a tree in a private garden points at that garden, so photograph the tree and not people, and think before sending a visit from somewhere you would not want identified. We call this anonymous because we never learn who you are — not because a photograph with a location in it carries no information.

Your device keeps a key so you can come back and remove everything you have sent: open My account and choose to remove it. Clearing this browser’s site data loses that key and with it the ability to take the photographs down, so write to t.welch@auckland.ac.nz if that happens and we will find them another way.

Nothing from a shared visit is published without a person reviewing it first.

Other services

Aerial imagery is provided by Esri. Google’s sign-in interface loads when you open sign-in on a configured site. Those services receive the connection requests needed to provide their features.

Research-sharing version: kyte-research-v1 · September 2026.