Monday, March 12, 2012

Dangers of Geotagging Photos

With more and more people jumping aboard the smartphone and tablet revolution, some might not even be aware that whenever they snap a photo - it is highly probable that it has embedded the GPS coordinates of your current location on the photo itself.

Most of the time, that may even prove useful. Allowing you see wherever you've been, as well as precisely pinpoint each and every photo - putting the "is this photo here or there?" issues to rest.

But, on the other hand things, things can get messier when you start sharing those pictures online, as the army itself can attest when one base was attacked after enemy forces located it thanks to a geotagged photo.

Even if it's unlikely your photos will mean war, you might want to rethink your strategy about posting your home or even garden photos on social sharing networks - as those will allow anyone to instantly know where you live.


There are "scrubbing" programs that can remove all those extra info that is invisibly stored in your photos - on the so called "EXIF" properties. Or you can even do it in Windows by simply right clicking on it, and going to properties->details->remove all personal info.

Better be safe than sorry.




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