Did you know every time you upload a photo from your smartphone online you could be giving others the coordinates to your location? I’m sure most of you already know that your cell phone has GPS. All cell phones made after January 2006 are required by law to be GPS enabled. While this is great for 911 operators to pinpoint your location in an emergency, it is not wise for publishing photos online.
Geotags are GPS coordinates that can be added to digital files such as photos. Many GPS enabled smartphones automatically embed geotags into photos. The problem? When you upload these photos on the web to sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Craigslist; you are unknowingly providing the location of your home or favorite coffee shop to strangers.
Suppose you snap a photo of your kids playing their new Wii & post it on Twitter. Later you update about heading out to dinner. A computer savvy burglar (or worse) is now aware of your location & when you won’t be home!
The geotags in the photo provided the latitude and longitude of where the photo was taken. They simply plug the coordinates into google maps & determine the photo location. According to Gerald Friedland, a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California, “any 16 year-old with basic programming skills can do this.”
Disturbed yet? There’s more, a Department of Justice report found that a quarter of stalking cases involved cyber stalking!
How to protect yourself:
- Be mindful of uploading pictures from your phone online. Facebook strips geotags upon upload, Flickr makes you opt in; however, Twitter leaves it all intact.
- Turn of Geotags on your Smartphone (my Verizon Driod was disabled by factory settings)
Go to your camera
Go to Menu
Go to Settings
Find geotag options
Disable geotags (turn off)
Protect your privacy! Although cases of geotag crimes are still rare, we should all strive to protect our digital information.
Photo credit: Future of Real Estate Marketing
References: Women’s Health Magazine, December 2010 & NY Times, August 2010
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