In today’s world its hard to find someone who doesn’t use Facebook or Twitter. Its even harder to find someone that doesn’t frequent these site via their Smartphone or Iphone. We are in constant connection with friends a family, able to share and upload photos not only at home but while we are out and about on vacation, work or even just running daily errand. Who doesn’t love to snap a funny picture of something you saw or document that perfect sunset? We all do it. We are constantly sharing picture via our smartphones to sites like Twitter and Facebook, keeping our family and friends up to date on our current activities. But due to recent search engine optimization technology we should be aware that we are sharing more then just the image in the photo. In an article by Betty Lin-Fisher and another by Sarah Graettiinger they discuss the so called "dark side" to this form of technology. Most iphones and smartphones automatically have a setting on that records the exact location of where you take your photos. They do this by using a GPS program. Whenever you snap a picture with these setting enabled you are recording your exact latitude and longitude coordinates called with “Geotags”. It doesn’t stop there, photos that are then posted or uploaded to social media sites allow viewer to not only view the photo but are current location. So what the problem you ask? Well with some relatively easy programs online, someone without good intention can click on your photos using these geotags and gather information to pinpoint your current location. So this means someone who is trying to track you will then be able to gain access to where you and your family are, when your not home or track your favorite hot spot that you may visit on a regular basis.
Charles Johnson, who is the assistant director of the criminal justice department at UMPI, specializes in the dark side of technology of such apparently innocent pastimes. He pointed out that even if people only sometimes update their status to show where they are, that puts them in a more dangerous situation than people who don’t. Burglaries are more likely to happen to people when they geotag their location or just update their status to where they are. So if you’re a the type of person who is constantly uploading photos while on the move and in the moment it is easy for someone to begin building a profile of your schedule, where you like to go and what you like to do. Luckily for those of use who enjoy keeping friends and family up to date using these photos updates, there are precautions we can take. Here are some ways to be safer on Facebook: put your sharing on Facebook to “custom,” increase the level of your privacy settings that include photos, decide what information you want people to see and who you want to see it. Disable the “check me into places” tag and the public search tag. Enabling HTTPS support will make your Facebook slower, but will make it harder for someone to hack your account or try to view your information. By doing these small steps you are able to keeping posting those fun update while keeping a little bit more of your privacy in tack.
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