The banners outside the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, cropped from a photo taken on an Android phone. The crop was saved without the phone's details, so it holds no location.
What it found
- One word. It boxed the banner reading "Woolf".
- Not every word. Other banners and a small sign went unboxed. A check like this points you at text; it doesn't list all of it.
- Enough to count. With no location in the file, writing in the picture was the only significant thing it flagged.
What the report said: Exposure B, with the text as its only real finding. Authenticity B, and the report named a software encoder, which is what saved our crop.
Street signs, shopfronts and house numbers can place a photo even with its details removed.
Go deeper
- What else a photo can give away: Can a photo be tracked back to you?
- Why it's hard: Hidden Text in Photos: A Privacy Risk?, by Kenneth Springer
- Try it on your own photo
Tagged
photo-privacy
