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Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

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Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#101

Post by smileybarry »

simonw wrote: post #88

Surprisingly iOS doesn't do this - at least not for photos uploaded via a web form these days. Try this tool to see that (it should demonstrate the Android EXIF stripping behavior too): https://tools.simonwillison.net/exif

iOS does this by default too, but it tells you about it and gives you the option to not strip the location from EXIF: the bottom of the photo picker has the text "Location not included", and the context menu opened by the "..." button on the left has a "Location" toggle. Just tested this myself on iOS 26.4.1.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#102

Post by SirMaster »

roywiggins wrote: post #94
morissette wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like such a shitty thing to victimize the potential victim. But… if you didn’t know that images you took had metadata… maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to use a computer. I mean. I’m going on decades of knowing this. Feel like there is a mid 90s X-Files episode that even like breaks this down. If not NCIS or some shit.

Even people who know it, don't think about it and don't connect it with the potential consequences of uploading a picture to a website. And why would they? It's not visible, there's no warning, it's just not something that's going to be top of mind.

So we should educate people about it. Don't you think that constantly coddling people about tech just breeds tech-illiterate people?

Wouldn't it be better if people were more tech-literate?

Coddling only works when those who are in charge of the tech play nice. But then breeds people who will more easily fall victim to the bad actors.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#103

Post by simonw »

smileybarry wrote: post #101
simonw wrote: post #88

Surprisingly iOS doesn't do this - at least not for photos uploaded via a web form these days. Try this tool to see that (it should demonstrate the Android EXIF stripping behavior too): https://tools.simonwillison.net/exif

iOS does this by default too, but it tells you about it and gives you the option to not strip the location from EXIF: the bottom of the photo picker has the text "Location not included", and the context menu opened by the "..." button on the left has a "Location" toggle. Just tested this myself on iOS 26.4.1.

Thanks, just found that option hidden in the "..." and then "Options" menu: https://gist.github.com/simonw/6d530cdca574ac56450dfa805f25e...

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#104

Post by WarmWash »

edgineer wrote: post #55
maccard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If google really cared about privacy, they wouldn't have moved maps away from a subdomain. now if I want maps to have my location (logical), I need to grant google _search_ my location too.

It's not all-or-nothing; sometimes some people at Google push for some things to improve privacy. Rarely happens when revenue is at stake. Android used to ask you "do you want to alllow internet access?" as an app permission. Google removed that, as it would stop ads from showing up. Devastating change for privacy and security, great for revenue.

It's not great for revenue, it is their revenue.

People act like Google products are a charity that had been free forever, and then this mega-corp called Google came along and started harvesting the data of innocent people who just want to get directions to Starbucks.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#105

Post by tart-lemonade »

butlike wrote: post #46
lifis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously an image picker shouldn't leak filenames... The filename is a property of the directory entry storing the file storing the image. The image picker only grants access to the image, not to directories, directory entries or files. If you want filenames, you need to request access to a directory, not to an image

The path is different than the filename though. If I want to find duplicates, it will be impossible if the filename changes. In my use case /User/user/Images/20240110/happy_birthday.jpg and /User/user/Desktop/happy_birthday.jpg are the same image.

If your camera (or phone) uses the DCF standard [0], you will eventually end up with duplicates when you hit IMG_9999.JPG and it loops around to IMG_0001.JPG. Filename alone is an unreliable indicator.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_rule_for_Camera_File_sy...

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#106

Post by akamaka »

smileybarry wrote: post #101
simonw wrote: post #88

Surprisingly iOS doesn't do this - at least not for photos uploaded via a web form these days. Try this tool to see that (it should demonstrate the Android EXIF stripping behavior too): https://tools.simonwillison.net/exif

iOS does this by default too, but it tells you about it and gives you the option to not strip the location from EXIF: the bottom of the photo picker has the text "Location not included", and the context menu opened by the "..." button on the left has a "Location" toggle. Just tested this myself on iOS 26.4.1.

I just tested this and the default setting is to include location, but once turned off it stays off (unlike the iPhone share sheet where you need to turn it off each time).

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#107

Post by MostlyStable »

Shalomboy wrote: post #79
ieie3366 wrote: post #4

Most likely: actually using the geolocation is an extremely niche usecase for images uploaded from mobile browsers. I’d wager 99.9% of the users didn’t realize that they are effectively sending their live GPS coords to a random website when taking a photo. But yes, a prop to the input tag ’includeLocation’ which would then give the user some popup confirmation prompt would have been nice

My first eye-opening moment working within the government was with team of herpetologists at the state conservation agency. They had a pretty slick public education campaign around protecting Gopher Tortoise habitats and a grand call-to-action "let the agency know where and when they see their nests". The whole thing fell apart because they were getting tons of earnestly-submitted junk data from earnestly-engaged cit…

A colleague of mine tried doing this after a large sturgeon die off in the San Francisco Bay a few years ago. Citizens were asked to upload photos of dead sturgeon washed up on beaches. They actually got pretty good data (sturgeon are very easily identifiable) and lots of participation, but the location data ending up being largely useless because it was fuzzed (I think by iOS?) to a large enough degree to no longer be helpful, and the fields for manual coordinate entry had very low usage

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#108

Post by d2323 »

lukan wrote: post #78
sathackr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS still does this -- allows controlling internet access on a per-app basis.

For those of us stuck on normal android, is there a way to achieve that? I know it used to work with some firewall apps but nowdays they all require root access.

Netguard No Root Firewall still works for me: https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#109

Post by prmoustache »

klausa wrote: post #18
thaumasiotes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This a very weird set of choices by Google. How many users are uploading photos from their camera to their phone so they can then upload them from the phone to the web? I bet almost 100% of photo uploads using the default Android photo picker, or the default Android web browser, are of photos that were taken with the default Android camera app. If Google feels that the location tags and filenames are unacceptably inv…

> How many users are uploading photos from their camera to their phone so they can then upload them from the phone to the web? To _their phone_ specifically? Probably almost nobody. But to their Google/Apple Photos library? A lot, if not most of people who use DSLRs and other point-and-shoot cameras. Most people want a single library of photos, not segregated based on which device they shot it on.

I do it all the time for different reasons:

- have a local backup - being able to see them from a larger screen - being able to share them - sync them to home while I am away

I don't upload anything to google photos or apple cloud.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#110

Post by joosters »

lxgr wrote: post #100
sathackr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS still does this -- allows controlling internet access on a per-app basis.

iOS allows this, but only on mobile data , which is pretty infuriating. Why should I not be able to also restrict apps from dialing home/anywhere just because I'm on a Wi-Fi network (which isn't even necessarily unmetered)?

It's really annoying. I have a sudoku game on my phone, works great but give it internet access and it's suddenly full of sketchy adverts.

If I'm playing it on my commute, it's usable with mobile data disabled for the app. But when the train stops in a station long enough to auto-connect to wifi, immediate full screen adverts :(

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