GPS imbedded in online pics.

When I heard the story, I wondered how they pinpointed which store it came from.

Thanks for the info. I wonder if the various virus protection programs guard against this.

Many newer digital cameras include a GPSr for geotagging. Smartphone cameras can geotag pictures as well. Its nothing that virus protection will deal with because geotagging is by design. As in not a virus.

If one has hardware capable of geotagging - and they don't want it in their pics, they either turn off the feature in the camera/smartphone... or learn how to edit the pics and EXIF data that contains the geotags before letting them out to where the world can see it.

I need to get with the times. My cellphone just takes pics and texts. My digital camera just takes pics. My pickup just hauls stuff and gets me to where I want to go.

It galls me that some kid who is pulling down minimum wage serving fast food has better toys that I have!

Oh well....

Most modern cell phones geotag pictures taken on the phone.

That's right, rub it in!

Most of the tablets if not all with the camera can tag the photo unless you turn if off.My wife and I have different brands and they both do it.

Geniuses...

I wonder why so many things these days require a person to Opt Out of them.

Would the common person ever conceive that a camera would imbed location information into a photograph? No, from the comments posted here.

I would prefer that I need to Turn ON or Opt IN to something if I want it to happen, rather than first having to discover something is covertly doing things "for" me that I have no idea is occurring.

A good friend of mine in another state, 2 weeks ago sent me a picture of a house he and his wife were considering purchasing, he just sent the picture, not even a mention of the town or where it was.....I used GeoSetter (a free download) http://www.geosetter.de/en/ and got the Lat/Lon coordinates and responded to him that the house on xxxxx Lane.....was really nice ! In fact once I knew the location, I found the listing in Zillow and showed him the Realtor pictures of it. LOL LOL LOL.

He went crazy trying to figure out how I did that with just a picture. He took the pic with his IPhone.

By default, the iPhone geotagging feature is OFF. It must be enabled by the user.

Well evidently it was enabled, and if that's the case I have no idea how it was enabled because this is a guy that by his own admission isn't into 'tech' and I know that for a fact. This guy thinks an ohm is some kind of prayer chant.

Looking at the Iphone directions it says Location Services have to be enabled under Settings, for pictures to be geotagged. I do not have an Iphone but do have an Ipad2....I know I enabled this function for mapping and other services.....but until you said it, I was unaware THAT is what enabled the geotag function for pictures. I'm sure that is also why my buddy was unaware of it as well.

Wow! I checked some recent family photos that were sent to me. They were all geotagged. Glad I don't have that capability on any of my cameras. I'm sure it can useful, but I'll bet very many folks take photos without realizing they carry the location within their metadata. Do many photo cataloging applications prominently display geo data?

We must be headed eventually to a condition of total loss of privacy, huh?

Someone who wanted to do something nefarious could very easily locate via the embedded GPS data.

Nuvi1300WTGPS

My 295w has camera and email capabilities. When in Florida Keys I like to send pics back to the folks in NW Illinois. The geotag records the lat/long and the email shows the address of the wifi hotspot. I can turn both of those features off.
I don't put the pictures on Facebook though.

We must be headed eventually to a condition of total loss of privacy?
We are already there!
The devil knows what we do in secret;
And God sure does!!!!!

you'd be horrified to see what goes on in the back of some restaurants. And if they were stupid enough to mangle lettuce, then stupid enough to post a photo of them doing it, you shouldn't be surprised they didn't realize they were posting coordinates of the store with the photo.

Makes me very glad I don't have one of thos fancy phones!

I think I will go visit the stores where I bought my electronic stuff and see if they can dis-able certain features such as geo-tagging.
And I'm going to sign up for a class on certain items to know how they work and how to use them better.

If I want somebody to know details of certain things, I'm more than happy to write a photo caption, or answer a question but I sure don't want to be giving information that I"m not aware I'm giving out.

Can you imagine the potential damage a picture of kids playing at a schoolyard could do in the hands of a techy pedophile?

This technology is truly frightening.
Just think, a stalker could cruise the internet for jpgs looking for something that suits their sickly minds, and if close enough to them find that person where the photo was taken.

I became paranoid about identity theft and bought a shredder. Anything with my name and address on it gets shredded. By no means is this a 100% safeguard but it's one way to reduce the odds a bit. Having your identity stolen can become a nightmare to clear up. Now we must worry about the pictures we take.

It is a great feature when traveling (makes it easier to catalog my travel shots) but I wouldn't want it for everyday use.

http://pixelgarde.com/

This is one of many sites that has free program to remove any metadata (like geotags) stored in photos.

I personally would only do that for photos published to online sites where the general public might see them.

I recently took over maintaining the family tree, For looking back at photos taken years or decades ago it is nice to always be able to say where and when a photo was taken if it wasn't written down.

For me, strip the metadate for public posting, but hang onto them for family and friends. Just my two cents worth.

Do you not think that the pedophiles already know where the schoolyards are?

They don't need a geotagged picture for that.

"Like"

If you use Picasa to play with your pictures, the geotagged ones will display a small location pointer in the lower right-hand corner. This is the easiest way I know to check them all. Not a Google software fan, but this piece is pretty slick.

I know on my 1450...Under the Garmin POI's, there's a selection called community, and among other things it does list school locations. I agree with MC Mama, they do have other means at their disposal.

There was something similar in England earlier t his year. Guy emailed a threat to the police with the words in a photo. But the photo was geotagged with his home location and that's how the police captured him

that's all my wife needs is another reason to be paranoid about what the hired hands are doing in the back of restaurants.

I hear thieves scout photo thought social internet site with geo tag to find their next target. So I would turn off my cellphone geo tag feature at home and only leave it on when outside.

Not just thieves, criminals and stalkers learn by embedded GPS on social sites, where and when their next victim will be.

Camera makers are considering a more 'vague' GPS accuracy to prevent this kind of attack.

The Pentagon, or Fort Knox.

Or it could be used to find a lost or stolen phone.