Can Your Facebook Photos Be Traced With Geotagging?

By David Nield

Facebook can use the location information stored by some cameras and phones.
i Jupiterimages/Polka Dot/Getty Images

Geotagging connects a photo with a particular location, and Facebook is able to interpret the location information stored with your images, if present. It's up to you whether you display this location information on Facebook, and the audience selector tool gives you full control over who can see each image.

Geotagging

Some cameras and mobile phones store GPS data with each photo to mark where it was taken. Web services and software applications can tap into this metadata to plot photos on a map, in the same way that time stamps on your pictures can help you sort them chronologically. Facebook does not automatically publish this GPS data without your permission, but it does use it for suggesting locations you can add to your photos and albums.

Photo Locations on Facebook

When you click the "Add location" button by one of your photos on Facebook, you see suggestions based on places near where the picture was taken, if it already has GPS data stored with it. You can tag a photo with any location that has a page on the Facebook network, such as a bar or park, whether or not it is near the locations that are suggested. Anyone who has access to the photo can see the location you've associated with it.

Audience Selector

The audience selector controls which of your Facebook friends can view your pictures or any other content on the network. The audience selector appears in the upload photo box and on the new album page -- most photo albums have the same privacy settings for all of the pictures they contain. You can set your photos as "Public," for example, in which case anyone can see them and their location. Alternatively, choose "Custom" to specify particular friends or lists of friends who are able to view your pictures. This allows you to restrict who can see where your photos were taken.

Review Your Map and Photos

Open your Timeline page and click on the "Map" box to review photos that have a location associated with them. Click "Photos" to see pictures that have a location assigned to them. Images from the same location are grouped together under a numbered pin specifying how many photos are in the group. To add locations to more of your photos, select "Add Photos to Map" -- your recent pictures are shown at the top of the map, and can be tagged with any location that has a Facebook page.

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