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. 

Facebook Petition

Facebook is still being inconsistent when it comes to the removal of breastfeeding images. Though they claimed they would be more careful about it, it has been discovered the people who actually view the images and decide when to ban members are not even in their American offices - the job is outsourced.

If you are interested in reading more about this horrible saga, you'll find regular updates on Jodine Chase's blog.

In the meantime, please sign this petition and let Facebook and the world understand that breastfeeding is not sexual, dirty or need to be hidden.

Those Lasting Memories

After my dad died, I got hold of a viewer and my hubby and I sorted through his collection of Super 8 films. They were badly labelled or not labelled at all, so it made for some interesting discoveries (70s porn anyone?)
We finally got through ALL the Super 8s and I brought in the good ones for processing.

The good stuff:

-My parent's wedding
-My sister's first birthday and first steps
-My sister playing in a wading pool with like, two drops of water because my parents were insane and paranoid
-My grandfather and uncle
-A surprise birthday party my mom held for my dad, which he hated and she never surprised him again.

The weird stuff:

-My parents never thought to turn the camera on themselves.
-My mom at work, at Bell Canada, and everyone is smoking in the office.
-My father always shot random women's asses - did he not realize other people would see these things? (and I can just picture my parents watching them together and my mom giving him hell)
-A tape called "Barbara." "Barbara" dances a bit. Then she's on a bed in a bra and undies. Then she puts on sunglasses and a hat and dances some more. Then she dances with a man. He gets a little too grabby and she hits him. They continue dancing. That's the video.
What drugs were they taking? Who the hell is Barbara?


Lessons learned:

-If you own a camera, take pics of *yourself* sometimes because looking at foliage and whatever other stuff you think is interesting is not as interesting as *you* over time.
-Take more shots of *people* and not things.
-Name the files appropriately, with people's names if you can, dates and descriptions, not just "old" or "Montreal." It may be obvious to you now, but it may not be 30 years down the line to someone else. Name footage as if someone 20 years from now needs to know what the heck it is.