A digital photo is like an onion, and software scanning can help peel back layers to extract information from images.

Discussion: Digital photos on the Web may contain information revealing where and when the shot was taken and might even lead to the identification of the faces in the photo.  Coye Cheshire, A UC Berkeley professor, is researching people’s perceptions of the pictures they post online and he’s learning that people tend to perceive a loss in their ability to control or contain this kind of information, yet they aren’t necessarily more cautious about their online behaviors.  While some companies focus their capabilities on keeping the layers of information in a photo private, others are working to make the information public and instant.

Source: CNN.com

Date: April 8, 2011

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/04/08/photo.privacy/index.html

Questions for discussion:

• What are the implications of public (and even free) software that allows the user to obtain the exact location of a photo published on the Web?
• Is it up to the person that publishes the photo to use software to conceal the identifying information before they post to the Web?
• Is it good business for a company like Facebook to remove identifying info from each image uploaded on its website?