Personal data is shared in myriad ways, some obvious, others not so much.
If you’re an avid photographer, you probably know about geotags. But, if you’re a casual photographer, you might not. And, except for the truly tech-savvy, you may not even realize what information you’re sharing, and when you’re sharing it.
Photographs taken with an iPhone (and other smart phones), for example, typically record information about the location of the photograph. That information is known as a geotag. That information is later reviewable, and can be quite helpful to remind you precisely where you took the picture.
However, whether you realize it or not, photographs uploaded to social networking and photo-sharing websites will typically carry their geotags with them. Accordingly, anyone interested in tracking your whereabouts can easily do so with that information, especially when its combined with the photograph itself and perhaps other tags in or text about the photograph. Such information can thus reveal where you live, when you’re home – and when you’re not, what possessions you have, where they are located, etc.
The feature can usually be disabled (and photographs can be stripped of their geotags), but you have know first be aware of the issue and then take the necessary steps (sometimes buried in menus) to disable the feature (or remove the geotags from the specific photographs). For more information, check out ICanStalkU.com.