Remove Your Location Data Before Posting Photos Online

It’s a common practice for many of us: We take a photo we like on our smartphones, so we share it on our social media accounts. But with this every day practice actually comes a possible security risk: Unless you take action, the pictures you’re sharing reveal exactly where you were when you took them.

It’s called geotagging. When you take a photo on your iPhone or Android, the phone also “tags” the image with your coordinates. In some cases, that can be a fun feature, as your smartphone’s photo app can map out where you were when taking your photos. On the other hand, when you share these photos to someone else, they’ll be able to see your location as well. That’s not so fun.

Sure, you might want people to know where you were when taking photos on your vacation to the Grand Canyon. But if you take a photo of something that doesn’t inherently reveal your location, then share it to others, they’ll know exactly where you were (or are).

If you want to disable geotagging on your phone, it’s not too complicated, but it does depend on the phone you have.

To disable on iPhone, open Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Camera, then choose “Never.” On Android, touch and hold on the Camera icon on the home screen, tap “App info,” then head to Permissions > Location. Finally, just tap “Deny.”

You can also strip individual photos of their location data before sending them to other people. On iPhone, tap the share button, tap “Options,” then disable “Location.” On Android, go to the three dots menu, then hit “Remove location data.”