What is personal metadata?

[ThorpeyD]

In the pub the other day with a few mates and some computer geek said we was probably sharing personal metadata without even knowing it.

Couldn't really ask more questions at the time but it stuck in my head to find out about it.

Can anyone explain what this personal metadata is and how we are sharing it?

 

[Joe_Power]

Google is a wonderful tool, when it comes to a question like this.

 

[datech]

kind of related to cookies and stuff. places you visit on the web.

 

[Pop_Rivit]

Many files contain hidden data that, unless scrubbed, is transferred with the file. For example, a Word document can contain comments, revision marks, author name, document properties, hidden text, send for review information and routing slips.
Even digital pictures contain information like the type of camera, etc. Unless you scrub the metadata, it's usually sent along with a file that you're sharing.

 

[ThorpeyD]

Pop_Rivit, thank you!

I think what you say is exactly what he was talking about. One of my friends had been talking about uploading from his phone directly to facebook.

Now it makes sense. I shouldn't drink so much. LOL!

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: ThorpeyD
POne of my friends had been talking about uploading from his phone directly to facebook.

Yeah, if you have geotagging turned on in your phone, every photo is tagged with exact coordinates of where the photo was taken, and of course when. You upload a photo like this to Facebook, and Facebook will pinpoint on a map the exact location of where the photo was taken.

 

[BearZDefect]

Geotagging is nice for photos in your personal care, but I don't care to have facebook or google use such metadata to collect even more information on me. Or in some cases on facebook, leaking such information to unintended recipients.

 

[Donald]

Metadata is data that describes other data and can be used for searching/indexing, etc.

 

[razel]

'Personal metadata' is a buzzword. Metadata traditionally is data that describes a properties of a file. Right click to get properties of any photo, video or application file on your computer, dig through the tabs and you'll see things like file version, author, camera used, resolution.

Now imagine if you can right-click yourself to get properties... I suppose that's the idea behind that buzzword. It instead is data attached to your name out on the Internet that silly companies did not do a good job of keeping away from data thieves. Or is photos, posts on Twitter, Facebook that you didn't not keep to yourself and broadcast to others.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: razel
'Personal metadata' is a buzzword. Metadata traditionally is data that describes a properties of a file. Right click to get properties of any photo, video or application file on your computer, dig through the tabs and you'll see things like file version, author, camera used, resolution.



Agreed 100% 'Metadata' is data about data. If a picture is the data, the metadata is the file type, camera model, file size, lat/lon where the photo was taken, etc. If the data is a word document, the metadata is the creator name, revision history, and so on.

"Personal" metadata is just a non-technical way of implying stuff that you probably wouldn't deliberately attach to data if you knew it was there when you put it out on public, but that is often attached by default.

 

[tgrudzin]

Camera metadata can record exposure, frame count, serial number of camera used. Iphones can/will also record your geo location. Think about the people who post photos of themselves with contraband and then law enforcement can determine the location of the picture. That's how the stupid get caught. Hiding from the FBI and posting a FB pictures, that shows, hey, I'm in Cancun, Mexcio or other place.

 

[Joe_Power]

Get your phone a matching tin foil hat, just like yours.....

 

[rjundi]

Originally Posted By: ThorpeyD
Pop_Rivit, thank you!

I think what you say is exactly what he was talking about. One of my friends had been talking about uploading from his phone directly to facebook.

Now it makes sense. I shouldn't drink so much. LOL!


Yes an example would be if you tag your photo's on smartphone with geo location tagging they know where you are and where you took it and make a "profile" on you.

Google is building a search engine for images(you put in an image not text) so that is in its infancy. However eventually it will start to build connections if the image exists beyond the text entered.

 

[ThorpeyD]

Apart from location, is there any other information a photograph can reveal?

Is there anything else that a smartphone might add to the file eg my name?

And what if I transfer the photograph to my computer? Can any information be added to the photograph from my computer before I upload it to facebook?

 

[razel]

Originally Posted By: ThorpeyD
Apart from location, is there any other information a photograph can reveal?


In the world of most people who use smartphones and small digi-cams. No. I can imagine that if you had a rogue photo or social media application it can add anything it read off your smartphone to your photo, but again realistically apps off their respective stores are approved by Google, MS and Apple.

If you transfer to your computer, most free photo/video apps like tend to add their name to the metadata (eg. edited using PhotoFree-something) which is fine.

The worse that we go through at work (a local government) however is Word/PDF documents. Those can expose usernames and file share names used on our network buried in the metadata. You may have noticed something worse on some online government forms where on the page itself is the location of the file. Good thing, at least metadata-wise, is MS has been very good with the newer version of Office (2010+) about removing and showing you the metadata you might expose.