Nowadays whenever we go out somewhere or eat food in a good restaurant we immediately take a picture and post it on social media. Often the name of the place is written along with the photo. Have you ever wondered how your phone knows where you are at the time? This is all the magic of geotagging.
Simply put, geotagging is the process of adding geographic information to any digital file, such as a photo, video or message. It acts like a postal address for your digital content.
How does this whole system work?
When you take a photo on your smartphone and your GPS is turned on, the camera associates some unique code with that photo. It includes latitude and longitude. Also, the height at which the click was made is also recorded. All this information is hidden in the back part of the file i.e. metadata, which you and I can see by going to properties or details.
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Where is geotagging used?
The scope of geotagging is no longer limited to just Facebook or Instagram. It is being used in many fields from agriculture to census. The use of geotagging in agriculture has increased over the past few years.
- The government is doing geotagging to provide digital identification of certain crops according to geography. This shows which crop is being grown in which part of the country. This helps preserve their diversity.
- Companies use it to know in which area their customers are most concentrated. Based on this, you are shown ads with special offers from your city.
- The government is now preparing to use geotagging in census as well. This will make the data very accurate and eliminate the scope for fraud.
- Geotagging is also used to know the exact location of the accident or victim during any disaster or accident.
- Scientists also use it to map cities, monitor road construction, and track the location of animals in the wild.
What are the dangers of geotagging?
Every coin has two sides. While geotagging makes work easier, it can also pose a threat to privacy. If you geotag each of your photos and make them public, anyone can know your habits and the location of your home and office. Criminals or hackers can use this data to create a profile of a person’s movements, where and when they go. Many companies can sell your location history and harass you with unwanted ads.
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How to know if geotagging is on?
Geotagging is a great tool, if you use it wisely. Geotagging of photos in the phone is turned off by default. You can turn it on manually. However, if you want to check, you can go to the details option of the photo taken to see what information is visible in it. If the location information is not visible, assume that geotagging is turned off.