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People use mobile phones to take photos very quickly and often publish them online. This overlooks the fact that mobile phones store sensitive information in the photos which can then be read by anyone. The following article describes how to remove this sensitive information before publishing it on the Internet.

Here is an example of what information is stored in photos by mobile phones:

framp@majestix:~$ exiftool download.jpg
File Name : download.jpg
Directory : .
File Size : 222 kB
File Modification Date/Time : 2024:01:03 23:38:13+01:00
File Access Date/Time : 2024:01:03 23:38:16+01:00
File Inode Change Date/Time : 2024:01:03 23:38:13+01:00
File Permissions : rw-rw-r--
File Type : JPEG
File Type Extension : jpg
MIME Type : image/jpeg
JFIF Version : 1.01
Exif Byte Order : Little-endian (Intel, II)
Make : samsung
Camera Model Name : SM-G975F
Orientation : Horizontal (normal)
X Resolution : 72
Y Resolution : 72
Resolution Unit : inches
Software : GIMP 2.8.22
Modify Date : 2024:01:03 14:45:04
Y Cb Cr Positioning : Centered
Exposure Time : 1/524
F Number : 2.4
Exposure Program : Program AE
ISO : 50
Exif Version : 0220
Date/Time Original : 2023:12:30 11:04:10
Create Date : 2023:12:30 11:04:10
Shutter Speed Value : 1/523
Aperture Value : 2.4
Brightness Value : 7.46
Exposure Compensation : 0
Max Aperture Value : 2.4
Metering Mode : Center-weighted average
Focal Length : 4.3 mm
Flashpix Version : 0100
Color Space : sRGB
Exif Image Width : 1908
Exif Image Height : 4032
Exposure Mode : Auto
White Balance : Auto
Digital Zoom Ratio : 1
Focal Length In 35mm Format : 26 mm
Scene Capture Type : Standard
Image Unique ID : L12XLLD01VM
GPS Latitude Ref : North
GPS Altitude Ref : Above Sea Level
Compression : JPEG (old-style)
Thumbnail Offset : 924
Thumbnail Length : 5790
Image Length : 1908
Date Time : 2023:12:30 11:04:10
Date/Time Digitized : 2023:12:30 11:04:10
Flash Pix Version : FlashPix Version 1.0
Interoperability Index : N
Interoperability Version : 48, 46, 28.905959
Image Width : 567
Image Height : 1200
Encoding Process : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
Bits Per Sample : 8
Color Components : 3
Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling : YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2)
Aperture : 2.4
Image Size : 567x1200
Megapixels : 0.680
Scale Factor To 35 mm Equivalent: 6.0
Shutter Speed : 1/524
Thumbnail Image : (Binary data 5790 bytes, use -b option to extract)
GPS Altitude : 441 m Above Sea Level
GPS Latitude : xx deg yy' 28.91" N
GPS Longitude : xx deg yy' 2.19" E
Flash : No Flash
GPS Longitude Ref : East
Circle Of Confusion : 0.005 mm
Field Of View : 69.4 deg
Focal Length : 4.3 mm (35 mm equivalent: 26.0 mm)
GPS Position : xx deg yy' 28.91" N, xx deg yy' 2.19" E
Hyperfocal Distance : 1.56 m
Light Value : 12.6

For example, you can see where I recorded it. This is not always desirable. Also which mobile phone I use and when the photo was taken. All this and other information is sensitive and should be removed before publication.

This can be done quite easily with the exiftool tool. With

exiftool -overwrite_original -recurse -all= download.jpg

all  EXIF tags are removed.

After that, the photo only contains

framp@majestix:~$ exiftool download.jpg
File Name : download.jpg
Directory : .
File Size : 213 kB
File Modification Date/Time : 2024:01:03 23:46:01+01:00
File Access Date/Time : 2024:01:03 23:46:04+01:00
File Inode Change Date/Time : 2024:01:03 23:46:01+01:00
File Permissions : rw-rw-r--
File Type : JPEG
File Type Extension : jpg
MIME Type : image/jpeg
Image Width : 567
Image Height : 1200
Encoding Process : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
Bits Per Sample : 8
Color Components : 3
Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling : YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2)
Image Size : 567x1200
Megapixels : 0.680

 


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