Hidden Metadata & Copyrights

Your digital media not only contains picture or video information but also metadata which may expose private and personal information. Such information may be used for tracking you or forensic purposes. This is completely different to steganography which could potentially hide hidden information inside the data itself.

Hidden metadata Concerns:
Hidden metadata may expose private information such as the location where the photo was taken, when the photo was taken, the type of camera used along with the hardware unique identifier, authoring details, embedded thumbnails and other content.

Metadata Tracking:
Depending on where you share your photos online it is possible that metadata is added or modified to track your photos even outside of the portal where the photo was uploaded and shared.

Copyright Issues:
Photographers spend a lot of time taking good photos. Adding copyrights and author acknowledgments helps declare ownership / origins of the photo. This may be achieved via hidden metadata within the photo and/or via digital watermarking.

CHECK YOUR OWN DIGITAL MEDIA:
You can check your photos or videos to see what information has been exposed and check authoring and copyrights.