What is location tracking?
When you take a photo using a device such as a smartphone or a social media app, your location is tracked as part of information about that photo. Without strict privacy settings, locations tagged in your photos or posts can be shared publicly, and this lets others know your location and the location of those who are with you. If you don't want your location revealed when taking photos, you can turn this setting off on your devices and social media profiles.
What should I do?
- Turn off location services on all your devices (such as on holidays unless you want to use this feature to record where images were taken)
- Check to make sure the photos you have loaded from your phone onto your social media profiles, like Instagram or Facebook, do not reveal too much information about you.
- Show your friends and family how to disable the location services function on their phones and social media profile settings.
What is facial recognition?
Facial recognition software uses photos you have been tagged in to calculate a ‘template’. This template is based on your facial features, like the distance between the eyes, nose and ears.
Sites like Facebook use facial recognition software to help you tag photos by automatically tagging you or your friends in photos and suggesting tags of your friends. Only those who have been tagged in a photo have a template and if a photo is untagged, the photo is no longer used to determine your template.