Privacy: Smart Phone Pictures and Geotagging

A Geotag is location-based information stored in the metadata of digital photography. Metadata is data stored within a digital file; it is not visible to the naked eye.  Photograph metadata can be quite extensive and may include photographer name, date, camera settings, as well as location data.

With most modern digital cameras, geotagging is not a default option.  It involves add-on hardware to geotag at the time of picture taking, or software to mark pictures after the fact.  The most notable exception to this rule is smart phones, which are already equipped with the hardware necessary to geotag. Frequently, smart phone users don’t realize they’re revealing location information, because geotagging is enabled by default.  Users are frequently never asked if they want the option.

Uploading geotagged pictures from a smart phone to social networking sites, such as Facebook, or photo sharing sites, such as Flickr, for example, can give a cyberstalker precise location information about where the picture was taken and, by extension, precise location information of the individuals in the picture.

Sharing pictures is a big part of social networking.  The best way to share smart phone pictures with networked friends and to keep safe at the same time is to disable the geotagging on smart phones.