Internet, facebbok and
twitter kind of social sites from smartphones is very common today. Photos
clicked on smartphones are immediately shared on social media like facebook.
The potential of sending the information to any corner of world is unbeatable
and impressive. However, one needs to understand the risks involved in such
spontaneous sharing of photos and information from smart phones. The feature is
“Geo Tagging”. This is very useful feature of smartphone but at the same time equally
dangerous.
What is Geo Tagging?
It is the process by which
geographical location information is added to various media. Location of earth
at which smartphone photo is clicked is attached with photo because of geo
tagging feature. So when these photos are published on internet, this location
of earth information is also gets published. This information includes
latitude, longitude, height, distance, name of place and many things related to
location at which photo is taken. Hence people on earth now automatically know
where do you stay, where are you right now and may be they can know if you are
alone or not in home. So it becomes very easy for a person who wants to track
or follow you. Especially Criminals may track information using geo tagging to identify
next target for robbery. Action news in America few years back had conducted a
program to improve overall literacy in people about geo tagging risks. Video is here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vARzvWxwY
Avoiding
the risks of geotagging is a thing to keep in mind in this day and age of decreasing
privacy.
So what exactly you need
to do?
1. Simple, turn off the geo
tagging feature from smartphone unless very much required. Obviously after this sharing photo will not
be a concern and nobody will know about your whereabouts.
2. Decide prioritites when to
use geo tagging and when not to. For example, you can turn off geo tagging in
private places like home, vacation places, school, relatives houses and etc.
3. Know how to disable or
enable Geo Tagging feature in your lovely smartphone.
4. Don’t have public sharing
often. Have controlled sharing pf photos between your friends only.
5. Always check what geotag
photo information you are leaving on internet and share it publicly.
6. A very common platform to
share photos is facebook. You can disable the geo tagging of facebook places.
Hope this helps.
Cheers…
Happy Geo Tagging!!!
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