Parlor does not scrub exif data
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Since there are (presumably) a lot of photos on Parler relating to the Capitol insurrection, how do investigating agencies get access to them, now that AWS shut them down?
/s
There's plenty of value in EXIF data and, in most cases, users value that data being attached to an image.
Like if I'm using a gallery app, I want to be able to filter by location.
Or people that post online might want to tag their location.
IMO, smartphones should ask the user at least once per site whether to include personally-identifying EXIF info with image uploads. In many cases this is tantamount to sharing location data. It’s also not obvious to non-techie users that 1) photos contain GPS-tagged EXIF data at all, and 2) this data travels with the photo when it’s uploaded via a web form.
The people who browse HN may think of everything technology-related in a 'safety-first' manner, in my experience most lay people are excited to be able to sort by location (thinking in a 'function-first' manner).
If I were to ask my elderly father if he cared that his photographs have location data, it would be a resounding 'I dont care'. Taking the time to try and explain why location data being uploaded may be dangerous would similarly be met with yawns.
If I cannot get my non-tech friends and family to realize using the same 7-character password across multiple sites is a bad idea, nor can I stop them from answering Nigerian Prince emails; I'm not sure how to make them realize that EXIF data can be used maliciously. They just.. Don't care.
>Taking the time to try and explain why location data being uploaded may be dangerous would similarly be met with yawns.
Yes, I have explained. No, they still don't care (or realize that impact).
on the other hand, when you share a picture you're already sharing your coarse location. anyone who recognizes the scene will know roughly where you were. of course, there's a big difference between "this is the NYC skyline" and "this is the NYC skyline as viewed from the northeast corner of my apartment building".
Depending on the picture, you might still be able to go from one to the other even without the benefit of exact location information – in fact that's what I've been doing for old pictures in my photo library.
As my backlog is somewhat more than a decade, of course I don't remember where exactly each and every picture had been taken, but when geotagging them there's of course still the temptation to place the location marker as accurately as possible. Given a rough location from my memory, Google Earth, GeoSetter's field-of-view on a map/aerial photography display and occasionally a sun angle calculator I've been able to pinpoint the relatively exact location of quite a number of photos.
Sure, for outdoor photos. GPS data may also be included on photos taken indoors, such as nudes, in which case EXIF data leaks the subject’s home address.