Tech Forum

First of all, the new photo upload feature for LDS Tools is great! I know we'll get more people's pictures in the directory with it so easy to add them!

A problem, at least showing up in my wars, is that it seems that anyone can upload a photo for anyone else in the ward, which is not possible through the website. I can upload others' pictures (expected, since I am the web administrator), but my wife seems to be able to upload a photo for anyone else through her account as well. The picture shows up in the approval queue and appears to go live immediately, too (though I can disapprove the photo and it it is removed everywhere).

Does anyone else see this issue? (please don't do anything nefarious in your testing, of course)

brianpratt wrote:First of all, the new photo upload feature for LDS Tools is great! I know we'll get more people's pictures in the directory with it so easy to add them!

A problem, at least showing up in my wars, is that it seems that anyone can upload a photo for anyone else in the ward, which is not possible through the website. I can upload others' pictures (expected, since I am the web administrator), but my wife seems to be able to upload a photo for anyone else through her account as well. The picture shows up in the approval queue and appears to go live immediately, too (though I can disapprove the photo and it it is removed everywhere).

Does anyone else see this issue? (please don't do anything nefarious in your testing, of course)

Yes, anyone can do this and the photos have to be approved first by a website admin. So upload away! (As long as you have a responsible website admin (or clerk))... all the photos will have to be approved.

brianpratt wrote:appears to go live immediately...

I think a member's own photo uploads are visible to that member immediately, but it really doesn't "go live" (meaning viewable by others in your ward) as you describe until approved by the admin. At least it used to work that way.... Someone using it now (after the update) could tell you better...

brianpratt wrote:A problem, at least showing up in my wars, is that it seems that anyone can upload a photo for anyone else in the ward, which is not possible through the website. I can upload others' pictures (expected, since I am the web administrator), but my wife seems to be able to upload a photo for anyone else through her account as well.

This must be a bug or an unintentional capability. Having this feature for only for the iPhone/iPad and not a feature of the LDS.org Directory bears this out. The mobile applications should not have capabilities contrary to the Directory on LDS.org.

This ability for anyone to upload photos can create issues in managing photos. While any photo uploaded by non-administrators must be approved before appearing in the Directory, an administrator will not know the source of the upload. If an administrator does not know who uploaded the photo then he cannot determine if there is voluntary consent from each person (or their parent or legal guardian) in the photograph.

jdlessley wrote:This ability for anyone to upload photos can create issues in managing photos. While any photo uploaded by non-administrators must be approved before appearing in the Directory, an administrator will not know the source of the upload. If an administrator does not know who uploaded the photo then he cannot determine if there is voluntary consent from each person (or their parent or legal guardian) in the photograph.

Having just read all the privacy stuff on the directory (and newsletter), I tend to lean in the direction of not uploading photos for other people because as jdlessley points out, an admin responsible for approving the photos doesn't know the source of who uploaded it and won't know if the member wants their picture included.

However, it would be nice to have a happy medium since it is a nice feature to allow uploading from my phone (I went around in church and asked brethren if it was okay to take their picture to be included in the online directory, many said that was fine, a few declined).

Maybe uploading for others could mimic the permissions of the online directory? Only admins can do it?

nathangg wrote:Maybe uploading for others could mimic the permissions of the online directory? Only admins can do it?

That would be the way I'd expect it to work.

RussellHltn wrote:

nathangg wrote:Maybe uploading for others could mimic the permissions of the online directory? Only admins can do it?

That would be the way I'd expect it to work.

So would I. This makes me wonder about the web services that implement the photo upload functionality. I also would expect the admin authentication to be locked down on the back end.

RossEvans wrote:This makes me wonder about the web services that implement the photo upload functionality.

Yikes. I hadn't thought of that.

jdlessley wrote:This must be a bug or an unintentional capability.

In the previous version, I could assign any photo on my iTouch to any individual shown in LDS Tools. I do not believe it sent the photo to LDS.org though. It was just a local thing.

And if there was a photo at LDS.org it downloaded to my iTouch.

lajackson wrote:In the previous version, I could assign any photo on my iTouch to any individual shown in LDS Tools. I do not believe it sent the photo to LDS.org though. It was just a local thing.

And if there was a photo at LDS.org it downloaded to my iTouch.

This is true. The old version would let anyone take a picture of anyone else and store it LOCALLY. The new version has added the ability to upload.