Friday, July 05, 2013

Every picture you take is secretly encoded with your GPS location...

If there is one thing you need to remember at all times in the Electronic Age, it is that privacy no longer exists. Every electronic device, every electronic communication, every electronic anything betrays your sense of privacy in every imaginable way, and that is also true of a seemingly innocuous item - the photo.

If taken with a smartphone - as many photos these days certainly are - then the government, as well as ordinary folk (including those who mean you harm) can use metadata embedded in that photo you just tweeted or posted on Facebook to find out your exact coordinates. That includes where you live, if that's where you sent or posted the photo from, according to a new investigative report by McClatchy Newspapers:

The GPS location information embedded in a digital photo is an example of so-called metadata, a once-obscure technical term that's become one of Washington's hottest new buzzwords.

The word first sprang from the lips of pundits and politicians earlier this month, after reports disclosed that the government has been secretly accessing the telephone metadata of Verizon customers, as well as online videos, emails, photos and other data collected by nine Internet companies.
Full story...

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