Your photos can tell strangers where you were. Here's how to check yours

The test

I took a photo with my iPhone in a public place, emailed it to myself with Gmail, and opened the attachment on another device.
It still carried the exact GPS location, the date and time down to the minute, my phone model, and even the direction I was facing (east, 70°). In total, 58 pieces of hidden information travelled silently with the picture.
I'm a developer, and I still didn't expect that. Most people have no idea it happens.

What a photo can carry

Every time you take a photo, your phone can save extra information inside the file. It's called metadata, and you never see it when you look at the picture. It can include:
• The exact location where you took it, often accurate to a few metres
• The date and time, to the minute
• Your phone's make and model
• Camera and lens settings
• The direction you were facing, altitude, and sometimes the app you used to edit it
None of this is a bug. It's useful when you browse your own photos on a map. The problem starts when the photo leaves your phone.

Why it matters

Many social apps remove this data when you upload a photo. WhatsApp and Instagram usually do. But photos sent by email, AirDrop, as a file or through a cloud link can keep everything.
Think about the photos you send without a second thought: a picture of something you're selling, taken in your living room. A photo of your kids at the park near home. A "harmless" picture sent to someone you've only just met online.
Anyone who receives the file can open its details and see where it was taken. You don't need to be a hacker to do it, and the person who sent it never knows.

Privacy is about choice

Privacy isn't about having something to hide. It's about deciding what you share, with whom, and when.
We've got used to giving away information without noticing: location permissions, cookies, accounts for everything. Photo metadata is one more layer of that, and one of the least known. The good news is that it's also one of the easiest to fix, once you know it's there.

How to check your own photos

I built foto.alorenzom.com to make this visible to anyone, without technical knowledge.

1. Open the site and choose a photo.
2. See everything it carries, with the location on a map.
3. Download a clean copy without the hidden data. The tool practises what it preaches: your photo never leaves your device. Everything happens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, there are no accounts, no ads and no analytics. It's free. One tip for iPhone: when you pick the photo, tap "Options" and turn on Location. Otherwise iOS hides it from the site, which is a good privacy default, but it means you won't see what the photo really carries.

How to protect yourself

On iPhone:
• When sharing a photo, tap "Options" at the top and turn off "Location".
• For a photo you already took: open it in Photos, tap (i), then Adjust, then No Location.
• To stop saving it in future photos: Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera → Never.
On Android: open your camera settings and turn off location tags. The exact name changes from one phone to another.

Try it

Check one of your own photos at foto.alorenzom.com/en. It takes ten seconds, and you might be surprised.
If it helped, share it with someone who sends photos by email. And if you find metadata it misses, I'd love to hear about it.
I'm an indie iOS developer. I build small apps at alorenzom.com.