Geo-tagging
Technology can be great, but it can also be dangerous to many unsuspecting people. I was forwarded an email from an old friend about how smartphones and the geo-tagging features on them can expose information you don’t want exposed to the public. (FYI, the YouTube video that was sent to me is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vARzvWxwY.)
I have always been careful about not sharing too much information about my children on the internet. I mean, really do I need to explain why? But what I did not realize was that many of the pictures that I was taking on my iPhone was embedding the GPS information in the EXIF information of my photos. Which meant that if people wanted to view the EXIF information on a picture that I took at home, they would be able to locate where I live on Google Maps.
What is EXIF? EXIF stands for “Exchangeable Image File Format”. This is information about the picture that was taken such as which camera was used, what settings where used to take the pictures (what lens, how fast the speed was, aperture setting, etc.), and even location of where the picture was taken. I always knew that EXIF contained a lot of information about the photo but what I did not realize was that it could also store GPS information. And by default, many smartphones out there will store the exact coordinates of where the picture was taken with the phone. With this information you can open up any mapping website on the internet and pinpoint the address that the picture was taken. This, can be VERY dangerous if you post pictures of yourself or of your children that were taken at home or their school or daycare. If somebody out there wants to stalk your kids (or even you) then you can become an easy target if you set the geo-tagging function on for your phone.
How do you view the EXIF details? There are many websites out there that can show EXIF information by simply typing in the URL of a photo. There are also some browser plug-ins that exist that allow the viewing of the EXIF details by a simple right click of a picture in a browser. (e.g. www.findexif.com, EXIF Viewer for Firefox)
So now that you know this, you are probably wondering, “How do I disable this?” Here is a link to another website that shows you how you can disable the geo-tagging option on your iPhone and Android phone (http://icanstalku.com/how.php#disable). On the iPhone iOS4.x, go to Settings, Locations Services and then disable by setting the picture taking apps to “off”.
I suggest that you check your photos online to make sure that you don’t have the EXIF information displaying the GPS details that you probably don’t want to share with the rest of the world, especially if you have children! Please do the safe thing. Don’t make yourself and your family an easy stalking target.
