Your photos will likely give away your location. Here’s how to stop it

Take a photo On any digital camera or smartphone, not only pixels are saved. The photo also gets a bunch of metadata attached to it, also known as EXIF ​​(Exchangeable Image File Format) data, including details of when it was taken, the device that was used to take it, and the camera settings that were used.

If your phone or camera has a GPS chip and is tracking your location, it will be invisibly stamped on the photo as well. This is good if you want to look at all the photos you took in New York City or at Lizard Point, but not so good if you share photos of your pets and don’t want to reveal your home address at the same time.

Anytime an image goes beyond just your audience, it’s important to think about the metadata attached to it and, if necessary, remove the site stamp.

How to view image metadata

Location-stamped image in Google Photos on Android.

Photography: David Nield

Image metadata can be useful in many ways, including location tags. For example, both Google Photos and Apple Photos can sort your photo library based on where the photos were taken. Just try doing a search in any of these apps for a place you recently visited to see the results.

There are several ways to see the metadata stored with an image. In the Google Photos app for Android, tap the photo to open it, then tap the three dots (top right) and choose on. If location information is attached, you will see the image placed on the map. With Google Images on the web, once you open the image, you can see the same metadata by clicking the info button (the little “i” in the circle) in the top right corner.

On iOS, you can use Apple Photos to find photo metadata by opening the photo, then tapping the info button (the little circled “i” button) at the bottom. Again, your photo will be displayed on a mini map, if there is location information attached. If you’re using Apple Photos on the web, double-click the photo to open it, and an info button will appear in the upper right corner.

This data can be found on Windows and macOS as well, although you only get GPS coordinates rather than a well-formatted map. In Windows, right-click the image in File Explorer, and then choose Propertiesthen open details unpaid invoice; On macOS, right-click the image in Finder, then choose Get informationIf there are GPS coordinates attached, you’ll see them in the pop-up dialog box.