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Comment by mrunseen | Hacker News Reader

A user can disable geo-tagging or the better(?) disable precise location in Settings.app > Privacy > Camera.

Like mentioned in the article, there a lot of EXIF strips in Appstore too but I’m not sure if a regular user would take the road of take photo > go to exif stripper > delete exif on photo > save the photo > go to facebook > upload to facebook

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You lose useful features like finding photos based on location if you don't remember the date it was taken.

I think the better option is:

(1) Make it obvious when location data is being included with a photograph, and exclude it by default - especially if the app doesn't already have Precise Location access.

(2) Apps that manage your entire photo library and all its EXIF data (think Amazon Photos / Google Photos, or an app to bulk import photos from a DSLR camera or something) should have to apply to Apple to get that specific entitlement- and social media apps should not qualify. But in this case, they shouldn't need Precise Location access to get access to all the EXIF data.

Personally, I use a Shortcut to be able to share photos without metadata. It works very well. It's the one included with iVerify, but there are free ones in the Shortcuts library.

Yes, the iOS photo library API should really strip out the EXIF data before passing to apps unless the user has let them have access to it - I bet this will be added at some point.

Facebook would like to access your photos:

  Select Photos

  All Photos

  Strip location and other metadata

The issue with tying metadata access to the Location permission is genuine Photo Library apps (eg. from Amazon / Google) typically are not given Precise Location access. There are some edge cases that need to be considered carefully, but there has been a lot of inaction from Apple on this issue - for years!

This option does comes up when sharing from the Photos app - I think this in possibly new in 14.5?

The manage photos screen in apps does say metadata is included, but doesn’t yet give an option to strip it.

The option to strip location and other metadata when sharing has been there for several years now.

I believe the issue lies in giving apps permission to access photos directly. This bypasses the share sheet and you never see this option.

They already handle stripping Live Photos (removing the video) so they should be able to strip other metadata.

That is a very useful feature to have though - for personal use. As a privacy nut I always make sure it is turned on.

Then again, I don't use facebook and I do strip exif if I want to upload a photo somewhere I don't want to share my location. (and I can do this with termux and the same tool I'd use this on my PC, just run exiftool -all= foo.jpg)

I get that it is not a sensible solution for the average user. But the problem is not exif-tags. It is facebook and the current ad ecosystem.

On android a file-picker that could optionally remove exif-data when a file is chosen seems like an easy workaround for the time being.

iOS can do this out of the box when “sharing” a photo via the share sheet, but apps that you give photos access can bypass that sheet.

Apple should update the photo permissions to allow enabling or disabling access to metadata as well.

I think the more obvious option is for Apple to fold in a privacy setting to each app for photos, alongisde the one that controls which photos are avaialble, so that you can choose on a per-app basis whether the OS strips exif data prior to making those photos available to the app.

More specifically:

Settings.app —> Privacy —> Location services —> Camera

and turning off the “precise location” option for the Camera app that way.

It would be ideal if there were an “EXIF data” toggle in the Camera section that could allow sharing pictures with apps but with all metadata removed.

It exists : when the sharing panel appears, there is little blue « Options » (or maybe Settings in English) link on the top of the screen. There you can choose to share the picture without location.

TIL! Thank you.

Maybe I misunderstood your message. I tried to share a photo from my iPhone to a whatsapp chat and I could not find any way to remove location data. On the other hand, this article says that you can do that when you start from the photo album and ask to share to someone else. Is this what you meant?

Yes, the option only appears when sharing from the Photos app

You have to uncheck the inclusion of location data every single time though. Really annoying and easy to forget. It also requires you (naturally) to prohibit apps like WhatsApp from accessing your photo library.

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