Posting cell phone pictures - DANGER!

It's hard to believe people have GPS enabled, actually. It's bad enough, meaning too "Big Brotherish", without it.
Mine's off for everything, though I do have the option of turning it on (and off again) remotely to locate my phone should it be lost.

awful...

I do not own a smart phone, but as a rule, anytime I get a new phone, one of the first things I do is set the GPS to 911 Only.

I have my GPS enabled always have always will i find it safer for me bein on especially because i walk places on my own so id be easily trackable if i was abducted, plus this technology has found missing people and murderers

I understand partents concerns though but if they were truely concerned they wouldnt be posting pictures of there kids on the net anyways IMO

I will post pictures of my DH and me and the cats (but that's pretty much it, unless they're really old pictures) on a public board that anybody can access. Like here, anybody can access and view the forums here, even though he or she must be a member to post.

On a completely private board that can even be viewed only by members, I feel freer to post pictures of my grandchildren. My son prefers it that way as well.

Lord help us all.

I wish I could convince my son to be more cautious. He does FB and has a phone like that. Every time I point out stuff like this, he just says that I worry too much.

You're right and I should have added that my GPS is turned off, other than for 911. I can't turn it off for 911.....

I honestly think that instead of this being an "OMG TURN YOUR GPS OFF!" statement it should be a learn who your friends are, keep pages private, dont post everything in the world on the internet for everyone to see, and the # of "friends" on facebook doesnt matter!
I have lots of pictures from my phone on my facebook, but unless you are my friend you cant see them. If you send me a friend request and I dont actually know you or you dont send a message along with it, yeah you are getting denied....Photobucket I dont post that much and picasa you can only get to them if you have the link. And chances are if I'm giving the link its pictures I'm not too worried about being out there.
I use my GPS feature for a lot of things. Including apps like foursquare and trapster and as a gps half the time and a few other random ones!

I used my GPS for checking in so my facebook friends could see what i was doing on holiday but my facebook is closed off to anyone that isnt my friend on there

Its just scare mongering again

I have my gps turned off simply for the fact that it consumes battery.

It's crazy what technology can do these days.

Some of the newer actual cameras are starting to incorporate this kind of technology as well.

If you have a photo program where you can plot where you were when that picture was taken (I think the newer versions of iPhoto do this), it will also save that information in the meta data when the picture is saved.

Just a bit off topic - but our city now has an email address that we can send pictures to of graffiti from your smartphone so they can track where it is and when it's being put up.

Can I ask.... you do realise this isnt a new thing its been happening since smart phones came out

A lot of people don't realize that the info is being posted along with the photo. Likewise, some people are shocked when they find their smartphones are "checking them in" at restaurants, airports, fitness centers, etc., and automatically posting that info on social media sites like Facebook.

Has anyone actually tried this (finding the GPS coordinates on a cell phone pic that's posted to Facebook)? There are a lot of hoaxes out there and this sounds like one to me. I tried looking it up on Snopes but evidently it's too new. Maybe in a week or two.

And if it is true, I'm not sure why it's a big deal. . .can someone explain that to me?

If a pedophile is looking at photos of children online, sees your beautiful little girl, and becomes fixated on her... well, it's sickening, but not too terribly dangerous, as long as you haven't been foolish enough to also post your home address, or the name of the school your daughter attends.

But if the photo you've posted was taken at your home and it has a GPS tag, then that pedophile can be standing outside your house when your daughter leaves for school tomorrow.

That's why it's terrifying.

We tried to track our pics last night and its quite tricky to do and you have to download software to do it

Every warning I have ever read about online social sites, and cyberstalking states clearly do not post your children's pictures online. Why do people do it?

It is not fear mongering. Even if special software is required, pedophiles can certianly purchase it.

I think people figure they are safe if no address is posted.

This is plain old fashioned media fear mongering for ratings. WATCH NOW OR YOUR KIDS MAY DIE!!! DOOM!!! DOOOOOOMMMMM!!!

As an IT person in the field for 11 years now (and longer than that as a hobby), PLEASE do not spread such absolute nonsense on the web.

It is bad enough that every other parent is afraid to let their child out of the house unsupervised and every other kid apparently needs drugs for ADHD, we don't need to "weaponize" a simple feature like geotagging.

If you don't like the geotagging feature, simply disable it. And there are a plethora of privacy features on facebook, flickr, and all the other social networking sites. And even if you don't, its a non-issue.

Lets face facts, child predations from complete strangers are statistically so unbelievably rare as to be a non-issue. Child kidnappings and rapes are almost always from someone the child knows (usually a relative, family friend, or authority figure such as a teacher, tutor, babysitter, or priest). Look both ways before crossing the street, absolutely. But this "don't talk to strangers" and fear mongering nonsense ingrained into American culture is not seen anywhere else in the world and is absolute nonsense IMO and the paranoia does nothing to protect children. "Hide yo kids, hide yo wifes, and hide yo husbands, cuz they rapin erbody up here...." -Antoine Dodson

And now those who didn't know about it can.

Not everyone is technologically savvy like you are. A lot of people who use these features don't know what they are doing. IMO, this thread is a public service.

Um. People have to have their settings do this manually. I am incredibly active on FourSquare, Yelp, Facebook and Twitter. No account is linked to the other. I use no apps on Facebook--not even places. When Facbeook released places they had an alert pop-up. I went, adjusted my privacy settings, and went about my day. My FourSquare check-in's go nowhere but FourSquare where I have to approve my friends.

On all platforms, I use only my first name if one must be used and an abbreviated middle name for my last name. And I have a general rule where if I have not met them "in real life" than they are not my friends on the internet either.

I have had employers Google me and I have Googled potential employees.

The email address I use for a professional capacity is only used for that. My personal email address is not on my resume.

Technology IS amazing. It takes common sense... use it wisely or do not use it at all.


(Hope that was not rude, tone of voice is difficult over the internet!)

My concern is that parents, especially new parents in my experience, are already far too protective of their children. And personally, I blame a constant bombardment of media fear mongering for this somewhat recent cultural shift in the United States. To date, no child has ever been abducted by a stranger in a Disney theme park for example per snopes, a venue with a plethora of children, often unsupervised, in a mass of people easily lost.

Child abductions are uncommon, and rape is a very small fraction of those abductions. And of those sexual abuse cases, statistically close to 30% were relatives and 60% acquaintances, leaving the possibility of some stranger finding a picture of your child and then using that geotagging feature to abduct him or her to stratospherically improbable, on the magnitude of being struck by lightning... twice. And yet, in polls around 75% of American parents are afraid of their child being abducted and molested by an online sexual predator they've never even had communication with.

My sister and I always walked a couple miles to the public bus station in Europe as kids to get to school, and were free to use our bus pass to head to town when we liked, and I am very thankful that fear-mongering half-truths and false statistics news shift had not taken hold there as a means of marketing their programs. Around here, it seems parents are afraid of even having their kid play in the neighborhood park without constant vigilance.

Unbelievable. Had no idea about that. I don't really post many pictures on-line other than here at TCS. But will have to ask my DH if she knows about this. Thanks for sharing.

Definitely public service--thank you (btw). I do believe more people should be educated on how to effectively and safely utilize technology for their enjoyment as well as safety.

Um, wow. Better lock your kid in the closet. If you take him in public, a pedophile might look at him! He could follow you home! There's a higher chance of that happening than someone seeing a picture online and coming to get you (even if you had your full name and address posted clearly).

Stranger crime against children is incredibly rare, and has not increased since the 1950s. They're in FAR more danger from their own parents (parental abuse/neglect is the #1 cause of death and injury in children under 4), teachers, and other people they know. A kid has a better chance of dying from vitamin D deficiency (from being locked in the closet ) than of being abducted by some random sicko. The chances of that random sicko having chosen that kid based on a picture on the internet is even lower. More likely he saw the kid in the grocery store.

I understand your concerns, but an ounce of prevention...