- November 16th, 2010
- Jackson Parker
Stop GPS Data Recorded in Photos From Revealing Where You Live
Did you know that GPS location data can be recorded when someone takes a picture of you?
According to the New York Times, when Adam Savage, host of the popular science program “MythBusters,” posted a picture on Twitter of his car parked in front of his house, he let his fans know much more than that he drove a Toyota Land Cruiser. Embedded in the image was a geotag, a bit of GPS data providing the longitude and latitude of where the photo was taken. Hence, he revealed exactly where he lived. And since the accompanying text was “Now it’s off to work,” potential thieves knew he would not be at home.
Geotagging is when a device such as an iPhone, Android smartphone or digital camera stores your location or geographical information, such as your GPS coordinates, within a photo or movie file (such as .jpg or .mov files). According to Wikipedia, a geotagged photograph is a photograph which is associated with a geographical location by geotagging. Geotags are useful in helping people find a wide variety of location-specific information. For example, one can find images taken near a given location by entering latitude and longitude coordinates into a suitable image search engine.