Protect your privacy. Disable location information in photos from your smartphone.
We love our smartphones. We love the convenience they offer by doing a lot of things for us, including tagging every photo we take with location information.
That feature can be great for programs such as iPhoto, but what happens if that location information fell into the wrong hands?
Websites like icanstalku or pleaserobme have made it a mission to raise awareness about the consequences of sharing location information in photos, foursquare check-ins and Facebook posts.
Say you post a series of three photos in a day, such as: making breakfast, taking the kids to school and arriving at work. The default settings of most smartphones leaves the location information in each of these photos. So, with some simple tools, a ne’er-do-well can find out:
- Where you live
- Where your child goes to school
- Where you work
Also, with some simple deductive reasoning, the person with malicious intent can figure out when you aren’t home, based on when you posted the photos (or the timestamp of when they were taken).
How to protect yourself by disabling location information in your smartphone’s camera.
iPhone/iPad (iOS):
iOS 7: You can turn Location Services on or off at Settings >> Privacy >> Location Services.
iOS 6: You can turn Location Services on or off at Settings >> Privacy >> Location Services.
iOS 5, iOS 4: You can turn Location Services on or off at Settings >> Location Services.
Source: Apple
Android:
Menu Key >> Settings >> Location and security
By default, GPS is on. Uncheck it to turn it off
Like disabling the GPS in the iPhone, this will break location based information for all applications, including legitimate uses.
In order to disable for just the camera application, start the Camera app to make sure that you are not saving your location. This is the menu on the left side of the camera application; it slides out from left to right.
- Select “Store Location” and make sure it is set to off.
- Once this is disabled, the camera app will no longer add geotags to your images.
- Go into picture-taking mode (via HomeScreen, click icon “Camera”)
- Press the Menu >> Options.
- Set the “Geotagging” setting to be “Disabled”.
- Finally, save the updated settings.
Source: http://icanstalku.com/how.php
Windows Phone
WP8:
Settings >> Application Settings >> Photos+Camera
Uncheck the box for “Include Location Info in Pictures I Take”
Source: http://www.gottabemobile.com
WP7:
- Settings >> Applications >> Pictures & Camera
- Set “include location (GPS) info in Pictures you take” to OFF.
Source: http://gcn.com/
Blackberry:
Blackberry 10 Devices:
- Settings >> Location Services
- Tap the Location Services switch.
Source: Blackberry
Blackberry 6 and 7:
- Open Camera
- Set Location icon to “Disabled”
Earlier Blackberry devices:
- There are multiple ways to disable the geo-tags on Blackberry. We details three ways here:
- Select Options >> Advanced Options >> GPS
- Press Menu key >> Disable GPS and select Yes to confirm.
- This will disable all GPS capabilities on the phone.
- Select Options >> Security >> Applications Permissions
- Menu select Edit on the application (default is Prompt for BB Core), Expand Connections, Change Location (GPS) to “Deny”, or you can disable within the application.
By taking these steps, you can be sure that your location information isn’t being shared if you don’t want it to be. While many modern social media sites (such as Facebook) often strip location data from photos, these companies cannot be trusted to reliably remove this data. Social media companies sell their services to advertisers based on how much they know about you. So, while they may remove location data for now, who can say that will always be the case? You have to be in control of protecting your privacy and the simple task of turning off location data in your smartphone’s camera can help.
From all of us at trueITpros, stay safe!