Data Lifeboat will allow Flickr members to create archives – portable, browsable mini-websites that package Flickr photos together with their rich social metadata, including comments, faves, and curation. Each archive preserves not just images, but the conversations and community context that make them meaningful. Users will be able to save their own photos or, with consent, include others' content, opening new possibilities for curators, researchers, and creative remixers.
"When you upload a photo to Flickr, you're not just sharing an image, you're contributing to a living cultural record," said George Oates, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Flickr Foundation. "Data Lifeboat ensures that record isn't lost to time, creating a lightweight, usable archive that can travel safely into the future without losing that valuable context, which is usually the first thing to disappear."
"With Data Lifeboat, we're showing that archiving can be both ethical and accessible," added Ben MacAskill, President, COO at SmugMug & Flickr. "It's about empowering individuals and institutions to take preservation into their own hands, ensuring their digital histories remain visible and usable for generations."
Building on the early success of pilot archives created with Data Lifeboat, the Flickr Foundation is demonstrating how the service can preserve digital culture at scale while deepening connections between communities and collections. Since taking stewardship of Flickr Commons, a program designed to support cultural organizations like the Smithsonian Institution and Library of Congress in sharing photography collections with the world, the Foundation has worked closely with over 100 cultural institutions to make over 1.9 million images publicly available. These collections thrive through social cataloguing, where the Flickr community assists helping identify subjects, and even reconnects families with lost histories.
"Publishing collections through Flickr Commons transforms static archives into living conversations," said Oates. "We've seen people identify forgotten relatives, rediscover lost histories and share expert knowledge across continents."
The beta release of the Data Lifeboat tool is available now for all Flickr account holders and can be accessed at datalifeboat.flickr.org. The Data Lifeboat service continues the Flickr Foundation's mission by giving both institutions and individuals the tools to preserve digital culture with consent and care, ensuring that the world's most vibrant visual histories remain discoverable for the next century.
About Flickr
Flickr , founded in 2004, is the world's largest photography community, committed to elevating the memories, artistry, and impact of all your photos. Fueled by passionate photographers for 20 years, Flickr provides users with the safest and most inclusive platform for sharing and connecting through photos and videos. Since its acquisition by SmugMug in 2018, these united brands have created the most influential photography-focused community in the world.
About Flickr Foundation
Founded in 2022, the Flickr Foundation operates separately from Flickr.com with a mission to keep Flickr photos visible for at least 100 years. By developing open, consent-based archiving tools and fostering global collaborations, the Foundation aims to ensure that billions of online images – and the communities that shape them – remain accessible to future generations.
SOURCE Flickr
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