➟ Use a photo-editing tool such as Windows Photo
Gallery (see Figure 6-3) to cover up or crop out infor-
mation that could put you at risk — for example the
house number, your street sign, and so on. You may
also choose to blur small sections of the image.
➟ Strip any additional information that may be stored
along with your photos or video. Many cameras and
cell phones have functionality that collects and stores
both the time and date, and the location where the
photo/video was taken. Web sites typically do not
strip out this information when photos are posted, so
anyone viewing a photo can right-click on it and from
the pop-up menu select Properties.If the information
was collected when the photo was taken, it will be
visible. This means a photo taken in your backyard
would provide anyone viewing the information with
the exact latitude and longitude of your home — and
online mapping services will take this information
and display your home and it’s address.
➟ Reduce the photo’s resolution. Some Web sites allow
you to copyright protect your photos, but unfortu-
nately most do not. If the photo is one you are happy
sharing publicly, but do not want people to copy and
reuse and the site does not have a way for you to
block copying, you may choose to post the image
with reduced resolution. It can still look good on the
Web, but the lower resolution makes it less likely that
others will copy and reuse the photo. There are many
software products available (perhaps even one that
comes with your camera) that you can use to remove
or hide information in photos, you may want to
‘paint’ over a section, blur portions of the image,
adjusting the contrast or colors to make certain
aspects less recognizable, or crop the image to remove
information for example.
129Chapter 6: Posting Photos and Videos Safely