any of you allow gps for your photo app?
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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I 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.
Most sites strip metadata thankfully.
Yes, but the company could still keep the data somewhere.
True, but I was thinking of this as someone else viewing the photo seeing the metadata.
If they pay a data broker the company is partnered with - they can.
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.
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(19 replies)
Linux:
exiftool -overwrite_original -all= ~/Downloads/your_photo.jpg
There are a million ways to do this, as have already been described in other comments. This is one more. I built https://photostripper.com/ a while back, when I was practicing building small web applications to learn different tech stacks. Lemmy is not the target audience - you folks know how to do this already, and why would you trust that I’m not keeping copies of your photos (I promise I’m not, but what is that worth?)
Anyway, I’m only mentioning it because it’s my thing and I enjoyed making it.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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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
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https://guardianproject.info/apps/org.witness.sscphase1/
Above you will find the link for an app called a obscure cam. It's open source and made by the Guardian Project. It allows you to sensor faces and automatically removes exaptata from your photos so that you don't put your geolocation on dating apps.
If all of the Tea users used this, that breach wouldn't be even a quarter as bad. Also would help if they didn't post their fn drivers license to a dating app.
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 was at a restaurant earlier this year, and I actually saw someone take a picture of their food, screen shot that picture, and send it on their messaging app of choice. Was so cool seeing it happen in person in my tiny town, and not just in the big cities or the internet
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.
pfft- yeah right. What, it's populated by a bunch of ignorant twits who were never told any better by even ignoranter twits? I don't think so
ehhh
Screenshot
Paste Screenshot
Works on all platforms
Apple puts a little exif data in there, but it's not very useful data.
For linux I use exiftool
exiftool -all= image.jpg
Can 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)?
I'm sure it can. I found several tutorials on how to add it to Dolphin's right click context menu, I just haven't taken the time to do it.
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For iPhone you can make a simple shortcut to do this. Here’s what it would look like:
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.
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I run it through my 1995-era photo editor that doesn't support all the metadata.
Or just don't.
most social media sites already do that for you . Unless you upload the image as a document, most media sites automatically remove the exif and compress the img.
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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.
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