The LandPKS Soil ID and LandPKS Classic apps are the products of Terraso, a fiscally sponsored project of Inquiring Systems, Inc. These apps are subject to the Terraso Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
Below, we provide some additional detail regarding how these policies apply to LandPKS Classic and LandPKS Soil ID for convenience. Capitalized terms are used as defined in the Terraso documents, but this explanation does not supersede any of the terms in the Privacy Policy or Terms of Service.
Last Updated: July 2026
Collection of Information
We may directly collect the following information from you when you create an account, enter data into the LandPKS apps or Data Portal, visit our website, or register for our newsletter:
- Personal Information: We may collect personal information, including identification information (name, email address, and other account information)
- Site Information: We may collect data related to the land of the “sites” you create using our Services that you provide us including latitude/longitude, land use type, site biophysical characteristics (soil texture, land cover, etc.), photos of your site, and other forms of site-related data.
Use of Information
LandPKS development is led by the Terraso team. Our goal is to provide comprehensive support for community-based land assessment and monitoring efforts worldwide.
Unless you choose to mark a site as “Private”, information about your site that we directly gather from you through the Services may be made freely available through the Data Portal for any purpose. It is available in the public domain and not restricted by copyright. As the LandPKS vision is to ensure global access to knowledge for sustainable land management, your data may be used by academic institutions, governments, or other entities for these and other purposes.
If you do not want your data to be made available, you may choose to mark the data you collect and store in the Services as “Private”. Records marked as “Private” will not appear online in our publicly available Data Portal and will not be accessible or downloadable by anyone without account authentication. Please be aware that if you change a previously created site from “Public” to “Private”, your site will continue to appear in public records until you have an internet connection and synchronize your site. While your data is listed as public, it may be downloaded by other users. We do not have control over the use of the downloaded data. Additionally, Private data may still be used in anonymized and aggregate form or as required in accordance with the law as described further in our policies.
Photos
The Services allow users to take and store pictures of landscapes and soil pits. We encourage you to avoid taking or storing any photos in our Services with personally identifiable information. We recommend that all photos you record with our Services do not contain any people that could be identified.
Deleting Your Data and Data Retention
You may delete your data from the Services by deleting the site data from the LandPKS apps. We will keep your information for as long as it remains necessary for the identified purpose or as required by law. We may retain certain data as necessary due to regulatory or technological limitations. We may also retain anonymized and aggregated data. We may not remove data from previously published reports.
Acknowledgement and Publications
We request that any publications utilizing data from LandPKS sources and the Services include formal acknowledgment of the data provider. The formal acknowledgement includes this statement: “Datasets were provided by the Land Potential Knowledge System.” Please also use the following citation to document LandPKS technologies and data systems:
Herrick, J.E. et al., 2013. The Global Land-Potential Knowledge System (LandPKS): Supporting evidence-based, site specific land use and management through cloud computing, mobile applications, and crowdsourcing. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 68(1). Available at: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ehs2.1209
Please send an electronic copy of all published reports and manuscripts to: [email protected].
Contact Us
If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy orTerms of Service, please contact us by email at [email protected].
