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As you may or may not be aware, every time somebody takes a picture with their cell phone, camera, etc. it will (by default unless disabled) capture EXIF data. The EXIF captures things such as exposure settings, camera model, date / time picture was taken, and GPS (if the device has GPS).
This meta data (EXIF) can cause problems if you post those pictures on-line. Here is an example.
You’re supposed to work, but you friends are going out of town for event X. You call in sick, and go with your friends. As usual you take some photo’s of yourselves having fun at event X.
Now either you (or your friends) post the photo(s) to your favorite photo sharing website (think instagram or facebook). You have people at your work whose job it is to check up on their employees, by following their facebook accounts, twitter, etc. Or perhaps a disgruntled co-worker who didn’t want to work extra that day.
= Time to be nasty =
Now the disgruntled employee / HR representative takes a look at your facebook account (or one of your friends) and looks at event X photos. They download one photo, and open it up and look at the EXIF (meta data). Assuming the photo was taken with a GPS enabled device (think iphone, android cell phone, etc) they now know the exact date / time the photo was taken, coupled with the GPS longitude and latitude of where the photo was taken.
Thank you, that information is enough to get you busted. At the very least, you could lose that days pay… or worse yet, you get written up, suspended, etc.
You can resolve this for your OWN photos, but it won’t help if your friends still post it with EXIF data. The process is fairly trivial to wipe the EXIF information. Your operating system of choice may do it easily. Otherwise, you’ll be looking at a 3rd party tool to wipe the information.
Here are two links for you. The first one will explain EXIF in more details, and provide a way in Windows to wipe the EXIF data. The second link is more geared towards Linux, and will show you some steps to “recursively” wipe the EXIF data from your photo’s.
* http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-ways-to-remove-exif-metadata-from-photos-and-why-you-might-want-to/
* http://hacktux.com/read/remove/exif
Keep in mind, this was only one example. Posting your photos with EXIF data can provide people with your GPS co-ordinates. The GPS information can provide people with your exact address(es), and be used as a means to track you.