Apple was massively praised when they started stripping location data from shared and uploaded photos.
Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
51–60 of 330 posts
Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
#52Earlier 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.
> it will be impossible if the filename changes.
Not impossible, just different and arguably better - comparing hashes is a better tool for finding duplicates.
Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
#53Does iPhone do this? Kind of scary to be accidentally sending your home address anywhere you upload a photo.
Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google prompts you in Google Maps if you want to upload your picture to Maps. I sometimes do that for random pictures, even like selfies, which I don't mind popping up there.
Wait... You post selfies on Google Maps? The thought never crossed my mind. What would the purpose be? Sorry I'm probably thick...
I can say for me that after my father died I posted pictures of him at some of his favorite places or from favorite trips.
Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
#55It's a sad story and a fun-looking project but I think Google 100% did the right thing here. Most people have no idea how much information is included in photo metadata, and stripping it as much as possible lines up to how people expect the world to work.
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.
Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
#56How good are LLMs at geoguessing?
Quite good, per Bellingcat [0] — Google Lens and ChatGPT could localize the majority of their test photos pretty specifically.
[0] https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2025/08/14/llms-vs-geol...
Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
#57It's a sad story and a fun-looking project but I think Google 100% did the right thing here. Most people have no idea how much information is included in photo metadata, and stripping it as much as possible lines up to how people expect the world to work.
On reddit half of "the is it AI?" question are answered by "Yes, it say so in the metadata".
Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
#58Most 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
> 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. I'd wager 90% of the photos on Google Maps associated with various listings don't actually know their photos are in public. I keep coming across selfies and other photos that look very personal, but somehow someone uploaded to Google Maps, the photo is next to a store or somet…
I suspect there used to be a flow which was far too easy to share directly to Google maps. I was browsing the map once and found a picture of a credit card in a room in a hotel. I guess the guy intended to send it to his PA or something.
Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
#59It's a sad story and a fun-looking project but I think Google 100% did the right thing here. Most people have no idea how much information is included in photo metadata, and stripping it as much as possible lines up to how people expect the world to work.
Because most people have no idea how the tools they chose to buy and operate work, the few rational people who educate themselves have to suffer...
This sounds like a downward spiral concerning freedom.
Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos
#60How good are LLMs at geoguessing?
Pretty good. I played a bit with gpt-4 a year or so ago by feeding it random screenshots from Google street view. It will pick up a lot of subtle hints from what otherwise looks like generic streets. I imagine more recent models might be better at this now.