[Cialug] Security issue with geotagging your photos

[Zachary Kotlarek]

On Mar 1, 2011, at 8:19 PM, Matthew Nuzum wrote:

> This may seem obvious to you but believe me, it's not obvious to everyone.
> 
> When you enable geotagging of your photos on your smartphone it may give strangers the ability to know exactly where you (and your kids or friends) like to hang out. You may want to consider disabling it by default.
> 
> http://www.cybersalt.org/general-news/smartphone-pictures-pose-privacy-risks


I think that is the wrong battle. Don't get me wrong -- I think controlling image metadata is important and people should be made aware -- but I think it's an awfully subtle thing to sell to people who are intentionally broadcasting their images on the Internet.

For this to be a problem you have to already be exposing pictures of you, your cohorts, your surroundings and probably some bits of your behavior to the world at large. The fact that there are GPS coordinates in the photo just make your location easier to index, but that is far less data than you're exposing already with the image itself.

I think the right answer is to only share images with people you explicitly want to see them. While that's contrary to the way that many image-sharing services work, and perhaps even contrary to the way people want to conduct themselves, it would all but eliminate the problem described here. It's also a consistent, easy-to-understand message about privacy, as opposed to some technical detail related invisible data your phone may or may not put into the private-data-rich photo you're already intentionally sharing with all of FaceBook.

	Zach

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