Beware of Geotagging Photographs

The storage of location based data, in the form of Latitude and Longitude inside of images is called Geotagging; essentially tagging your photograph with the geographic location. This data is stored inside of the metadata of the JPEG images and is useful for tying the photograph to a location. Want to remember exactly where you took those photographs while on vacation? This information is for you.

However, most people don't realize that the action of automatic geotagging takes place on their smart phones, either because it is enabled by default, not exposed to the user as a setup option, or was setup initially and then forgotten. As a result, individuals often share too much information about their location, right down to the exact Latitude and Longitude when snapping photos with their smart phone and then posting them online. When pictures are shared online, some social websites store and share your exact location information.

The easiest way to stop posting this information for all to see is to disable geotagging on your smart phone. And this is most commonly done through your smart phones camera and location/security settings. To find out how to disable this setting on your particular handset, please refer to your handsets user/owner’s manual.