Okay, this is sorta creepy — and if you aren’t aware of this little fact by now, you should be: Unless you’ve adjusted the settings to turn this feature off, every time you snap a photo with your iPhone it embeds data with your exact location in the image file. This data, called a geotag, can be easily read using easily available software by anyone who has access to your images online (btw, contrary to what the folks at NBC say, it’s not new technology; the ability to geotag photos has been around since at least the first iPhone to include GPS, the 3G).
Got an iPhone and a Windows computer? Lucky you, there’s actually a free Windows utility that does the same thing called Geotag Security. Of course, preventing your photos from being geotagged in the first place is easy: Just launch System Settings, tap on Location Services, scroll down to the “Camera” switch and set it to “OFF.”
When he was eight, Eli Milchman came home from frolicking in the Veld one day and was given an Atari 400. Since then, his fascination with technology has made him an intrepid early adopter of whatever charming new contraption crosses his path. He calls San Francisco home, where he works as a journalist and photographer. Eli has contributed to the pages of Wired.com and BIKE Magazine, among others. Hang with him on Twitter.
2 responses to “Strip Private Location Info From Your Images [New Mac App]”
A lot of places strip the EXIF data, including GPS info. Facebook does not have any EXIF/GPS data in their pictures. Flickr shows it, but there is an option to disable it. Bottom line, find out before you upload.