The hidden danger of location-based applications

Do you use Foursquare?  Take pictures with your smartphone?  Then you need to read this post… My lovely coach Anastacia Brice sent out a disturbing message to all of her clients yesterday about geotagging. It gave me some food for thought… so I thought I would pass on the message…

First off, what is geotagging? Geotagging is what you do when you see Foursquare (or other location based apps) check in from places you go.. It’s also often a default setting on mobile phones that leaves data behind photos you post online which can be used to track your location.

Why is this a bad thing? Because geotagging makes you vulnerable.  Bad guys can follow your “virtual tracks” to find a good time to rob your house or steal your car.  There is even software out that can pinpoint information about your children in pictures — even down to the location of a bedroom in your house. By piecing together the data, a criminal can see your routine – and that makes you vulnerable.

Anastacia went on to this very scary video about geotagging. The video is almost a year old. Imagine how much MORE is possible for those who are interested in doing you harm today?.

So, how do you clear the location data from your phone. ICanStalkYou.com has directions here. Basically, you can disable all location based services (but that would disable maps on your cell phone OR you can go into your phone’s camera setting and disable location based tagging just for photos.

Do you use Foursquare or other location based social media?  What do you do to protect your privacy?  I would love to read your comments