Reasons to be paranoid: photos with location \ gps data (in exif)

[mikeb]

It’s not what you are smoking that matters, it’s that images taken with phones and modern cameras with GPS /location enabled can contain ‘exif’ data that *may* identify the coordinates of where you were when you took the photo. It you think about it, that might be advertising to the interweb where your prized BSA’s sleep at night...  I’ve tested this and can find myself (and some of you guys) via what's been posted.

Some ways to avoid this are:

• Some phones and cameras have an option to turn off saving location data with the photo. Do this. it's probably on by default.
• turn off GPS on your phone when you take the photo, and probably location services too. Same too with some modern cameras.
• Or use an older /low-tech camera (non-GPS).
• There are tech ways to strip this out of an existing photo but not for the faint hearted.

if you want to know if your uploaded photos contain this evil info PM me with a message link (of yours showing a photo you posted) and I'll check for you. eg GB your recent huawei does not (altho the chinese govt probably knows anyway ).

and FYI, from a PM, Caretaker notes there is no current easy way to do this backend on the forum server so best we each attend to it when we take the photo.

Cheers

[Caretaker]

The exif is looked upon as important part of the image, so the forum software keeps it and has no way of removing any particular lines in the image file, at the server level, it could be done but they won't change their general php settings for one particular customer among 100.000's.

Personally, I always set my devices to not include gps for photos, and location (or even general data) is never turned on unless for specific & temporary usage.

But that's me, probably 99.9% just use their phone as intended by Google, Apple, app makers, Farcebook etc, a continuous feed and gathering of everything about people's lives (in the disguise and deceit of being (addictingly) useful\practical for the user), and the GPS may be on 24\24.

At the moment, I'd think we can only inform that stock image settings on one's mobile phone (only a few dedicated cameras have gps, yet) may\will include the coordinates. Or some have manually set it to include the coordinates.

General exif info: https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/view-photo-exif-metadata-on-iphone-mac-and-windows/

One can strip out the exif in an image editing program. Best is as mikeb writes, turn off GPS\position tagging in your device before taking photos intended for publishing anywhere on the internet.

[Greybeard]

GB your recent huawei does not (altho the chinese govt probably knows anyway ).

Good and bad! Thanks.

[Seabee]

Very interesting! I am so technologically challenged, that I'd never figure it out. Can anyone say, "1984?" (Big Brother is watching!).

[berger]

its like being in the village with the new number 2 ." I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or NUMBERED!

[BSA_54A10]

Well you should be worried about it.
We were having just this type of discussions & I was getting pilloried as being unnecessariy paranoid.
My phone was locked off & the others were complaining that they had to leave me messages.
A chap from the table next piped in & said I was right that using our phones as we were was dangerous.
So money ended up on the table
He took a photo of the 8 of us,
The photo recognised 3 of the group who have face book pages and within about 10 minutes identified their name address, place of work, their partners name & place of work, their parents & in one case the inlaws , all of their children , the schools their children were at the ages of some of the children, when they left home this morning and where they had been between leaving home & having lunch with all of us. He also located most of the relations that he identified.
He walked out with $ 50 and all of the others turned the location services on their phones off.
And for taking photos, I have a funny device that is called a camera.
The meta data on the camera only tells the date & time the photo was taken and the brand & mac code of the camera.
Thus when I upload a photo there is no naughty things being revealed.

For photo editing I have an old copy of Creative Suite 2 which is now 15 years old but still processes photos faster than I can & 3/4 of what it can do have never been used.
No face book, no Twitter no Instagrame
Cloud computing is begging to have your data stolen or even your computer or photos hacked and then ransomed back to you.

For the same reason I have a different screen name on all of the forums & mail lists I subscribe to and all of them are linked to a dummy email alias that trashes every email that arrives automatically.
Email notificatons are turned off & I only eve browse forums on an old computer that is on a network & firewalled.
Using your phone to connect to forums is very dangerous .

The best thing is the last time I googled me, I did not exist which is the way I like it.

[Butch (cb)]

If you are using free on line services then you are the product, not the customer.

[mikeb]

last time I googled me, I did not exist

Trevor, in the logic of surveillance capitalism, the problem is if you are trying to be that invisible you may find yourself on a government watch list 

[BigJim]

Nearly liked Mike b's comment. Managed to stop myself, was trying to find irony. Not a light or amusing subject though.

[mikeb]

Not a light or amusing subject

i wasn't joking Jim.

A suggestion for caretaker: would it be possible to add a line above the photo upload button saying something like:
"for your privacy, don't upload photos containing your GPS or location data."
or something similar??

[Caretaker]

^^^ Surely possible to edit something somewhere, will look into it.

Edit, take a look in posting page, at least the basic info is there, can't put a book about internet, phones, privacy in there :O) nor edit too much, things may break.

Added details to topic title.

So, turn off geotagging in the phone\cam. Now, do not think about asking me to clear gps data from previous uploads, would imply downloading, editing, reuploading 10.000's of photos :O) Could do a small amount for a few members if asked (PM), only -really- crucial reasons.

But if anyone wants to edit their own previous uploads, go ahead, most or all image editing programs will have an option to save with or without exif. And there's exif editing programs, maybe one could remove gps and keep the rest. So, download the image, save wo exif, untick original attachment in forum, upload new version. Nr of views count will be lost, apart from that no problems. Good luck ;O)

[mikeb]

thanks Caretaker - that should be sufficient to remind us.
I've gone thru some of my newer photos on this forum and removed exif.
if other paranoids out there wish to do so:
here's how you can remove exif before uploading a photo:

• on windows - right click on the pic file.
• select 'properties'
• select 'details'
• click the 'Remove properties and personal information'
• then you can remove 'all properties' or just the ones you want.

OR:

• use an image viewer like Irfanview. 'Save as' the file and de-select the exit data from being saved.

I'm sure most image programmes have a similar function.

How to check if your files contain exif geodata?
I only know how with Irfanview (its free).

• open the image
• Image > Information > Exif info (if its is shown) and have a look. if its there you can click to see the location

and don't forget to turn this off on your phone/camera to prevent this in the first place

HTH

[Caretaker]

A little more info for anyone who wants to 'clean up' eventual gps coordinates by download and resave exif-less. Or using an editor to keep exif but place shed and bike in f.ex. 55°45′6″N 37°37′4″E (Kreml) or 39°1′10″N 125°44′17″E (Pyongyang) 

Profile > Show Posts > Attachments gives an instant way of finding posts with attachment(s), from there go through the list, clicking in the Message column to go directly to the post.

If many, many attachments, do it over time with no stress, keeping track of what's been checked \ edited.
Nice work for rainy evenings and stormy nights :O)

[BSA_54A10]

last time I googled me, I did not exist

Trevor, in the logic of surveillance capitalism, the problem is if you are trying to be that invisible you may find yourself on a government watch list 

At age 11 I turned down a full scholarship to Newington College.
The local minister who unbeknown to any of us had moved heaven & earth to get me the scholarship mentioned this to one of his fellow Masons.
This resulted in there being a NSW Police Special Branch file on me for around 20 years.
When they abandoned & disbanded Special Branch the public were allowed to search their archives to see if they had a file & read it before it was supposedly destroyed.
SO there my life was in a 4" pile of paper tied up with red tape.
In all that time , my drug use, riding with bikies and other such activities was all there  in glossy ( mostly black ) photos.
As there were some taken very early in the morning & others quite late at night I was obviously being watched 24/7 so probably providing full time work for at least 3 agents.
And with all of this the "warning" on the front of the file read "Associates with known homosexuals "
So there you have it
We can not afford to build social housing, hospitals, schools or the 7 expressways considered vital for the defense of the nation back in 1948 , but we havve plenty of money to snoop on the population just in case they become homosexual or even worse, a communist .
And the files had refferences to everyone I had associated with or worked with so it was lot of money being totally wasted.

[Caretaker]

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