There’s a news video being passed around warning about the dangers of geotagging on photos taken with smartphones and posted on Facebook. The reporters get some photos of a random child from Facebook and use the geotagging info to find the address and pay a surprise visit to the parents, who NOT surprisingly didn’t want to talk to them on camera.
Now, disabling geotagging doesn’t cost anything and doesn’t cause any real inconvenience, but stranger abduction is extremely rare. Has there ever been even one case (other than these reporters) of someone tracking down and exploiting a small child based solely on seeing some pictures on a social media site?
I am not sure, but it cracks me up that some of the people that complain about these things over share their lives - and have little clue how easy it is to find someone if you know their real name (assuming they have any public records at all). There is really no need to use geotagging or hack their computer.
I think this is mainly reporters that have nothing better to do than scare people. It is a real risk - as you are leaking data you probably aren’t aware of, but if you are sharing stuff on Facebook with your real name - I can already find where you live most of the time.
I’ve read, but have not bothered to check, that Facebook strips out the EXIF information from photos before presenting them to people. That would mean your location may be in the picture when you upload it, but it isn’t there why anyone else sees it.
I’ll try to verify if I get some free time…but maybe someone else already knows.
Keep in mind that if you’re posting a picture to facebook, it’s already got you’re real name and location and where you work, go to school (and your daily schedule and list of your fears on the back) and a ton of other information with it…right there for the whole world to see. Geotagging is probably the least of your worries.
Having said that, I always turn it off on my phone, I can’t see any reason to have it on.
Most people shed a trail of personal data five feet wide and a lifetime long, even those who think using a username protects them. Geotagging photos is just one more cookie crumb.
OMG you mean that people could look at the geo tag data and find out that the picture I posted of the Golden Gate Bridge was taken in San Francisco?
OH SHIT!
It doesn’t bug me, but I can see it bugging others. Or you upload a picture taken at someone else’s house, who is not a user. Now their privacy is somewhat comprimised. Or you have fake info up (like many people I know.) Etc.
But I did think that information was stripped by Facebook. Maybe I’m thinking of Instagram or something.
This is, I’m sure, a HUGE boon to all those millions of pedophiles who desperately want to attack a child, but have for years been stymied by not knowing where to find one.
People know where I live anyway because I’m right there, going in and out of my house. If I still had a home phone, I would be listed in the phone book. What’s the big secret? If I were in the witness protection program or had a stalker who was specifically tracking me (or my hypothetical kids), I might worry.
In case it wasn’t clear I’m not asking whether a predator COULD find a child’s whereabouts based on a photo posted online. I’m wondering if there has ever been a predator who just saw a picture of a random unknown child and decided to track that child down for nefarious purposes.
Because from all I’ve read, people who prey on small children go after children they know, or at least have seen in person. I’ve never heard of even a single case where someone went after a child that they “chose from an online catalog”, so to speak. (Not the same as those who troll chatrooms or social networks to convince minors to meet them somewhere.)
Yeah, this is one of those “news” stories aimed at the technophobic and/or tech-illiterate. Stuff like this always gives me a bit of cognitive dissonance, as I first respond to the dire tone of the warning and then think “Well, yes, smart phones geo-tag pictures by default. Doesn’t everybody already know this?”
No. Apparently not. And yes, also – the EXIF information is probably the least of your worries in the online world.
I suspect that, if there is any real risk here at all, it is a little more abstract than the current fearmongering indicates.
For example, a while back, there was a trend of proud parents with kids on the high school football team, it died off quite a bit after reports that thieves would look for those houses, figuring that they’d be empty on Friday evenings. But of course, this requires them to drive around neighborhoods–correlation of photos on Facebook or whatever would make that easier.
But it’s still probably more effort than most thieves are going to bother to go to–most burglars aren’t really Ocean’s 11 material.
Although not lead by EXIF geotagging, there have been accounts of thieves stealing GPS dash units out of cars at sports events, pulling up the address the owner very kindly marked HOME and robbing their house while the owner is miles away cheering on the team of their choice. If I recall correctly that happened several times in Chicago a few summers ago… maybe it was just Tribune fearmongering, though.
I know, GPS and JPG are completely different letters, but just saying- give it some time and I’m sure someone will try to run a similar heist off EXIF data.
