When you take a picture on your smartphone or your DSLR, chances are that those pictures are geo-tagged . Which means that after you share your photos on the internet in a social media site, people can download the picture and extract the EXIF data.
What is EXIF data?
EXIF is short for Exchangeable Image File, a format that is a standard for storing information in digital photography image files. The information that includes EXIF are the type and model of the camera used, the resolution of the image, ISO data, time and date as when the pic was taken and most concerningly the exact GPS location of the picture that was taken.
How to remove EXIF data?
There are various methods by which you can remove EXIF data from your image files. Let’s go through them for each operating system that you may use.
For Windows:
Step 1: In windows, you can simply select the file or multiple files, then right click and open the Properties menu.
Step 2 : Click the Details tab in the Properties dialog box.
Step 3 : At the bottom of the Details tab, you should click on a link named “Remove properties and personal information”. You will shown two options:
- Create a copy with all possible properties removed.
- Remove the following properties from this file.
Step 4 :Select the option you prefer and click “OK”.
There is also an open source application that I recommend called ExifCleaner which you can use to easily remove EXIF data.
For Android:
Since most people nowadays use a smartphone for taking pictures, it’s important to remove the EXIF data before posting them on any social media platforms. Use Scrambled Exif to remove EXIF data from your pictures.
How to prevent EXIF data collection?
Easy way to prevent geotagging is to disable the option on your smartphone’s camera settings. For DSLR cameras, check your manufacturer’s website or instruction manual on how to stop imprinting EXIF data within your image files.
Have a good one.
