There is a news video floating around about photo geotagging on smartphones. It's typical of what passes for journalism these days. It creates an overblown crisis. It relies on the fact that most people are unaware of what the technology they are playing with does.
The news report goes on to say that people trolling social media websites can find out all sorts of things about you that you may not want them to know, including your kids' daycare center and other panic-inducing information. It implies that all of this information can be found in your photos. That's bullshit taken literally, but there is enough weasel wording in the report to let them slip by an accusation of creating false alarms.
However...
With every picture you take on your smartphone, there is a block of information about the photo called EXIF data. Smartphones can use their built-in location function to add your location to the EXIF data. This location can be very accurate, sometimes to less than a hundred feet. That means that anyone who knows how to read the EXIF data can get a precise location where the photo was taken. Depending on how you feel about your privacy, that can be pretty bad news, all by itself.
Here is where the news report crosses over into FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, usually used to panic someone unnecessarily). All sorts of detailed information about your life can't be found in a single photograph, or even in several photographs. Remember, the news report mentions social media. Where the nefarious detectives can get this information is in the EXIF data, along with what you post publicly. They can use it to figure out all sorts of things you don't want them to know. For example, if you take a picture of your second grader in the school play and then post it publicly on Facebook, the bad guys now know where your kid goes to school. Don't panic and throw away your phone and delete your Facebook. It's a combination of bits of information that you can easily fix.
First and foremost, never post anything on Facebook publicly. Always set your privacy to friends only. Think about it. When you post that darling picture of your kids in their Halloween costumes publicly, the creepy, basement-dwelling perverts can see them. What they are doing with them is at least disgusting, and potentially scary. Facebook seems to like to change the way you change your privacy settings from time to time, but as of January 5th, 2014, here is how you do it:
Click the little icon thingy that looks like a gear in the upper right hand corner of the page. Then click on "Privacy Settings." You will get a new page.
At the top, there is a section labeled, "Who can see my stuff?" On the line where is says, "Who can see your future posts?", it should say "Friends." If it says "Everyone" or "Friends of friends", click on the "Edit" link and change it. If you had to change it, you need to have Facebook go back through your old posts and change the privacy settings. A couple of lines down, there is a link labeled, "Limit Past Posts." Click on it. There is some information on what you are about to do and a help link. Basically, it comes down to whether or not you want Facebook to go back through your old posts and make sure that only your friends can see them. If you want do do this (and you probably do), click the "Limit Old Posts" button. Please note that "Friends of friends" is essentially public. You have no idea who the friends of your friends are, or their friends, and so on.
The next section is about who can send you friend requests and messages. You have probably already set these, if needed, so we'll move on.
The last section is labeled "Who Can Look Me Up?" This one is just as important as limiting who can see your posts. Maybe more so. Make sure the lines about people using your email address and phone number to look you up are set to "Friends." If they aren't, click the "Edit" link and change them. The next one is really important. The line that is labeled "Do you want other search engines to link to your timeline?" should say, "Off." This keeps search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing from pointing to your timeline. That makes it much more difficult for the bad guys to find you.
I don't use Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, or any of the other social media that allow photos, so for the rest of this, I will assume that all of what you post there is public.
Now you want to disable geotagging on your phone.
On an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod), open the Settings app and tap "Privacy." Tap "Location Services," and make sure that the slide for "Camera" is off. That's it. The photos you take from now on will not have your location.
I don't own an Android device, but I got this from a website. It applies to Android 4.2 devices, so it is probably out of date. It may still work, though. Someone who knows more about this can comment on it. Open the Camera app and tap "Settings." Find the "GPS Tag" option and turn it off.
Keep in mind that the photos you took before you changed this are still geotagged. If you want to fix them, you will have to download all of them to a computer and use special software, like Photoshop, to edit the EXIF data. Once you do that, you will have to delete them from your phone and upload the edited photos (if you want to). You will also have to delete them and repost them (if you want to) on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc.
There, your life is now a little more private. Keep in mind that if you are not actively trying to hide, like changing your name and moving to a different country, someone who is determined to find you, will. This just makes it harder for someone to casually run across you and get into your business.
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