Your photos might include information of the exact location and time of the photo taken, your photo/camera models etc. Companies, governments, or someone with bad intentions can use such information for their benefits against you. This can easily be accessed by AI as well.
On Windows 11:
- Right-click on the file
- Properties
- Details
- Remove properties and personal information
Lots of people don’t care, but I guess this could be useful for some of you.
Most sites strip metadata thankfully.
Linux:
exiftool -overwrite_original -all= ~/Downloads/your_photo.jpgI discovered that recent versions of the built-in photo apps on Android flat out refuses to do this. The UI for removing location info is there, but it is intentionally blocked if the exif info was added automatically by GPS (i.e., it only works if you manually have set a location). It seems so weird, and outright evil, to block one of the key ways for people to stay safe.
Scrambled Exif has served me well.
ehhh
Screenshot
Paste Screenshot
Works on all platforms
Apple puts a little exif data in there, but it’s not very useful data.
I run it through my 1995-era photo editor that doesn’t support all the metadata.
You guys are uploading personal photos to social media?!
That’s how 99% of social media works
Terrible idea. Hopefully it never catches on or we’re all in deep shit.
Every social-media platform strips EXIF metadata before publishing the photo.
So the issue is the trustworthiness of the social-media platform itself. Personally I always strip the metadata before sharing anything anywhere.
While this is true, especially with all the Palintir tracking stuff and the insatiable thirst for data to market, it’s far more valuable now than ever to the platform. The platform is happy to keep it and sell it to marketers who will share it for you.
Strips metadata so that the public can’t see it, isn’t the same as stripping metadata after the corporation has already collected and linked it to your profile. 😫
Always clean the metadata BEFORE it touches their upload UI.
Of course they strip it before publishing and of course they use the stripped data for themselves. Anyone assuming that they won’t should come and buy that bridge that I’m selling, it’s a great opportunity!
Sure, but let’s say you don’t allow Facebook to track your location. Well, as soon as you upload a photo with location exif data, they know it anyway.
They know the location data in the photo, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s your current location.
Bonus points for faking that data (with, e.g., exiftool).Yeah that’s true but in this scenario it’s your fault, not theirs.
This. Literally every social media site strips EXIF data from photos you post or else you would be hearing about 100x the number of doxxes you do these days. This tip would’ve been good in 2006 or if you’re communicating over something unusual like Email or Onionshare
Frankly I would extend that distrust to this little miscrosoft button too. With no proof or alternative in mind, it just feels like that button would feed the data to an AI before deleting it.
Alternatively, you can (probably should) decide to not upload any photo to social media.
That would destroy the majority of Lemmy though
The data is different for a ‘photo’ one took vs one of many other types of image. Your camera/phone can often include a lot of surprising data, possibly even your PII or location. An image you made in krita or with a screenshotting tool is somewhat less likely to have such data.
What are you waiting on again? Remind me.
What question.
What standard is that.
What personal details did I make up.
Why did you call me Danny.
Was it an attempt to dead name me.
Define woman
And last but not least are you sure I’m anti woman not anti feminist? I’ve tried to explain the difference to you and you just breeze on past.
What the actual hell is all that?
Check their history. They are stalking and harassing a couple of users they have a disagreement with.
Holy shit. Like at least a full on week of this…
What the actual fuck
A. Not a couple. One.
B.i asked them to leave me alone like fully a day and a half ago.
C. They said horrific stuff about my mother and refuse to apologize or leave me alone.
D. They keep saying horrific genderist stuff.
E. They’re claiming they’ve doxxed me.
They could just leave me alone and I wouldn’t have done this but apparently trying to dead name people and talk about about their parentage is like a super cool thing to do.
Dude, block them and move on. It’s not healthy to obsess about stuff like that. It’s just adding stress that you could easily avoid.
Can’t block them, if they did indeed doxx me I need to know if they disclose anything.
Not really stressful for me, I don’t mind being petty I mind people insulting my parents because they’re mad at me and moreover people who doxx and try to put people online.
Feels like an honorable site would make the uploader aware of this and offer a checkbox or something to do it for you.
Every site that allows image upload in existence now strips this data by default, but they do it on their server so they can get it first.
I mean, I’d probably do it server-side even if I were to have nefarious intent and want the data for myself anyway, since image processing client-side isn’t necessarily a good use of your users devices, really.
Plus, if I were to want the data in a client-side, I could upload it before doing the client-side stripping.
This comment doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny, my friend
You can strip exit data in less than 1ms on a phone processor in 90 lines of js btw https://github.com/Coteh/exifremove/blob/master/src/exifremove.js
You’re delusional if you think FAANGs don’t harvest the shit out of every single but of data they can get on you, including exif.
Calling deleting metadata image processing is a bit of a stretch. And you can disingenuously clean images either client- or server-side, that’s true, but if we’re getting serious here about data privacy, one could independently validate, build, and sign an executable for users to run locally. I don’t know of any similar technique to guarantee what’s running server-side.
For iPhone you can make a simple shortcut to do this. Here’s what it would look like:
For linux I use exiftool
exiftool -all= image.jpgCan it be made into a Cinnamon extension or even a tool with which I would run it for all new image files while idle (if needed)?
thank you for the linux command!
You should be able to prevent your device from adding the location to your photos. I never felt the need to have it, given the date and the photos around, it is easy to remember where it was.
By default I always turn off the location setting on the camera. I disabled it as soon as they introduced it as a “feature”. I thought it was creepy as fuck and dangerous. Without the location most of the rest of the information is pretty benign.
For example her is the full metadata from a picture I took yesterday.
Aperture: 182/100 Date: 2025-07-30 15:40:26 Date digitized: 2025-07-30 15:40:26 Original date: 2025-07-30 15:40:26 Digital zoom: 1.0 Exposure bias: 0/6 Exposure mode: Auto Exposure program: Normal Exposure time: 4.7824007651841227E-4 sec. Flash: Off Focal length: 5590/1000 35mm focal length: 24 F-number: 1.8 Image width: 2304 Image length: 4096 Lens model: OnePlus 13R back camera >5.59mm f/1.9 Light source: D65 Camera make: OnePlus Camera model: OnePlus 13R Camera maker note: {“PiFlag”:“0”,“nightFlag”:“4”,“nightMode”: “-1”,“asdOut”: [“0”],“apsAsdOut”: [“1”],“apsAsdClsOut”: [“1”, “0”],“iso”: “286”,“expTime”: “0”,“fType”:“50”,“bkMode”:“0”,“aideblur”:“0”,“aisState”:“8”,“algo”: [“65,72,16,19”],“filter”: “:-1”} Lens max aperture: 182/100 Metering mode: Center weight average Orientation: Normal Photographic sensitivity: 80 X dimension: 2304 Y dimension: 4096 Scene capture type: Standard Scene type: Directly photographed User comment: oplus_2097184 White balance: Auto
The only thing they would get is the model of phone I use. Which is essentially public information for every app maker I have installed on my phone anyways.
I can recommend
ffshareon android. Works like a pipe in unixland.Also on mobile what works for me when uploading a photo, I generally screenshot and upload that screenshot. Never upload the “original” photo.
Your phone or computer may add that data into its screenshots. Use a metadata cleaner if you want to be thorough.
