Pictures and the Concern about Location Data

Its been in the news lately that smartphone pictures contain accurate GPS location data (geotags) which if posted online could cause a danger to you or you family. Here are the facts as I know then, and I have just done a test to verify them.


I took a picture with my iPhone today, and copied it to my desktop. I also emailed it to the same  PC. On both occasions the geotags were present as you can see in the picture below. There has been major concerns about posting online to social media, so I posted the same picture to Facebook, and then downloaded it and looked at the details.


The geotag, (i.e. the location data) was gone, thus rendering the photo safe. I don't know if this the same for other networks, but you can check your own photos by right clicking on them and selecting properties/details. The GPS data will be present near the bottom as per the photo below left.


The safest option, and the one you should use mostly, is to turn geotagging off. On the iPhone this is done by going into your settings/location services and turning it off on the camera function. No other GPS services will be affected. Android users will need to check with their suppliers. The photo below on the right shows how it is done on the iPhone.