You Post A Pic, I Know Where You Live

I've written before about how what you post on the Internet now never really disappears, even if you erase it. I talk a lot about respecting privacy. As parents, we also want to keep our kids safe and many of us take precautions about what we post.

Did you know though, that it's easy to trace the exact location you snapped a charming picture of your little cutie through the photos you take with your smart phone?

Every time you take a smart phone pic, your geographical location gets embedded in the picture's info. There are plenty of sites on the web that detail exactly how to extract this location information. This means that when you post your beautiful treasure to the web, people are capable of tracing you back to your house address, the school your child attends, the park they like to play at, their friend's houses, etc.

I can find you! I know where you live!

 There's a way to prevent this though!

Of course, the obvious and safest thing to do is never post your smart phone pics to the Internet.

Realistically, I know we love to share those sweet faces with the world, so you can simply change the settings in your phone so as not to track your location when you take pictures. So go get your phone and do it now before you forget!

If you have an Android Phone:

-Go to your Camera

-Go into Camera settings

-Unselect Geo-Tag
(Or if it's newer, like mine, there are no words, only what looks like an upside down teardrop symbol. If there's a bar across it, you're safe! If not, tap it to put the bar across)

If you have an iPhone or iPad:

-Go into Settings

-Select Location Services

-Slide to turn the Camera option to OFF

If you have a Blackberry: (I'm not sure about these directions since I've never owned a Blackberry. If they need editing, please leave a comment for others so they will be able to do it correctly)

-Go to Options

-Select Advanced Options

-Click on GPS

-Disable "Location Aiding Field"

-Change the service field on GPS to "location off"

-Click on Menu

-Hit Save

Maybe go through your old posted pics and take them down or change the privacy settings on whatever site they're on, if they were posted before you changed your settings. Just to be on the safe side :)

Also good to know, some sites like Facebook and Twitter remove geo-location info from your pics before posting them, however, they could change their policies at any time. You decide if  you want to trust them. I just want to give you as much info as possible. 

The Line Between Honesty and Privacy

I've written before about the permanency of the Internet and how I think all bloggers should be careful about what they disclose about themselves and more importantly, their children.

While I believe in being open and honest in my blog (as I am in real life), I also ensure to keep a little bit of me and my family to myself. I believe that is the safest and most respectful thing I can do for myself and my family. So while the stories and experiences I tell are 100% truthful, I do leave out extremely personal details - there's no reason for you to know my address or exact location, for example.

Also, not everything in my life unfolds in the order seen here - I do auto-schedule some posts - partly as a safety measure and partly out of simple practicality. I have limited time in which to write, so in order to keep a consistent schedule (I've been aiming for Mon-Wed-Fri lately) it means I have to write things ahead of time when I have the time.

While I aim to help others on a similar life path as ours with the experiences we have, I also try to write in a way that is respectful to my son and hopefully will not embarrass him in the future. I want him to be able to look back at this blog and see how life was with him from my perspective.

I think most of this should be understandable or obvious to most people, but consider it my little disclosure statement and way to explain and maintain my integrity as a blogger.

The Permanency of the Internet

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I write about my family and about what others write. Frankly, I don't think enough people think about it seriously enough.

There's a certain permanency on the Internet that lasts longer than people's memories. Even if you take down a site or a blog, there are always personal caches, screenshots and The Wayback Machine archive.

What I find is Mommy Bloggers are often careful about themselves; not posting naked pictures of themselves or divulging the size of their partner's genitals, not discussing intimate details of parasites or diseases they've caught or other personal things of that nature - but they don't show the same respect for their own children.

I have been on online communities where a mother openly declared, "my son is a total butt boy!" during a discussion on toddlers and masturbation. Would she yell that out at a super market? Probably not. But there's not much difference between an open online community and a super market in terms of making public declarations to strangers. You might feel private and safe because you're sitting at home, but you're telling the world and making a permanent mark every time you disclose personal information on the Internet.

For the record, I don't think there's anything wrong if this woman's child is a "butt boy" but I would think that's info he alone should be allowed to disclose if and when he believes it's appropriate. I would think if he said that about her out loud at a dinner party, she'd be at least a little embarrassed.

What about when he grows up and finds it? What if his friends in high school find it first? Being a teenager is hard enough as it is without your mom telling everyone how you used to play with your genitals as a toddler.

There's also the chance people will take what you write out of context. This mother had CPS called on her after some person read her blog entry and reported her. Whoever did it was able to get enough personal information about this woman and her family to be able to call authorities.

I'm not saying let's all stop talking about our families, but we must do it in a way that respects the privacy and personal information of the little ones in our care - not just now but also in the future. What we write now on the Internet will not disappear. Our kids will grow up and need to get jobs and mortgages and you don't want to ruin things for them.

Before I post something about my son, I think about whether this is something I would tell a stranger at a cocktail party. I think about whether this is something he would want to share with others if he were older.
There's a fine line between being open and honest and divulging too much. We all have to walk the tightrope carefully.