Jun 1, 2015

Share your photos, safely

When my son was born, my wife and I obviously ramped up our photo-taking volume, not to mention diversity. No longer would hundreds, if not thousands, of nearly-identically cute pictures be dedicated to the felines with whom we share our home. Unlike cat pictures, though, we actually started sharing photos of our new baby. And this raised a red flag with me: Sure, it was totally fine for our friends to have these photos, but what if someone else got ahold of them? My home address, as well as the grandparents', were embedded in all these pictures, via the geotags that the iOS camera app stamps into each picture.

The more I thought about it, the more appalled I grew at how this sensitive information was so freely – and probably unknowingly – given out by almost everyone I knew. We all have smart phones. We all take pictures and share them. And none of us have control over where those pictures end up once they leave our phones. Sure, you can disable location services for the camera app and end the geotagging permanently, but I like knowing where my photos were taken! Years from now, I would like to know if that old picture on my computer was taken at grandma's house or not, if the scariest waterslide I ever went on was at Wild Rivers or Soak City – because I likely won't remember.

The same goes for social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. They don't explicitly show on a map where your photos were taken, but they do collect this data. I'm not a betting man, but I would wager that they also use it to learn more about you and your habits.

And so I wrote an iOS app to solve this problem. It's called SafetyPic. You use it to share your photos, but as it shares them it removes the geotag location data so that nobody will see your home address, your kid's school, etc. The photo on your phone still has this location data. The photo you share does not. And the best part? SafetyPic is free.

So protect your family – share your photos with SafetyPic and keep your personal information private.

SafetyPic website:  http://www.safetypic.rocks

P.S. If you find SafetyPic useful, please rate it or write a short review on the Apple App Store. And tell a friend! It will help get the word out, and will also incentivize me to keep improving the app.

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