Cybersecurity expert warns against sending a photo without doing ‘untick trick’

A TIKTOK account dedicated to cybersecurity has posted a tip for making sure your information stays private.

You could be unknowingly sharing more than just a photo without this key iPhone hack.

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Sending a photo from an iPhone includes more than just the image.

Metadata – defined in computer science terms as data that describes other data – is attached to every photo taken on your iPhone.

It includes the time of the snapshot and, importantly, the location.

When you send a photo from your iPhone, the recipient is given access to all of that photo’s metadata – including the location, which can be used to track the sender.

CybersecurityGirl, a TikTok user with almost 200,000 followers, posted an easy tip for scrubbing the metadata from your picture messages.

To apply the trick, snap a pic and go to your Photos library – press the square in the lower left corner to start the sending process.

Next, click the small blue text that says “‘Options” in the top left corner beneath the white text that reads “1 Photo Selected”.

The Options menu is the screen where users can limit the amount of metadata attached to the photo message.

Simply click “Individual Photo” to unlink your location from the photo.

This trick does alter your default settings – it needs to be applied to each photo message.

Scrubbing metadata is important for communications – failing to do so can result in embarrassing or endangering situations.

For example, when former President Trump was hospitalized with Covid, the White House published a series of photos meant to show him working over several hours or days.

Journalists tapped into the photos’ metadata which revealed the photos were part of a staged 10-minute photoshoot.

When sending a photo to trusted friends, it might not be necessary to scrub the metadata from your messages.

But in general, its important to know when and how your photo transmits your location to other users.