How to disable a smart phones geotagging feature By Greg Crowe Dec 10, 2012 Security experts have been warning about the potential risks of geotags for a couple years now. For instance, a photo taken by a U.S. soldier on his or her smart phone could potentially reveal location information and endanger the mission. While this feature does occasionally catch a criminal, the risk to military and government personnel working abroad, or anyone whose location could be considered confidential, is too great to ignore. The arrest of fugitive John McAfee and the revelation that his location had been given up by the geotagging feature on a smart phone might get users wondering if this feature is tagging things they do on their own phones. And, unless they’ve changed any settings, the answer is likely to be “yes.” “So, how do I turn this feature off?” you ask. Good question. Here are the steps to disable geotagging for the four major mobile operating systems. Note that manufacturer websites are largely silent on this issue; these tips are pulled from user experience, community blogs and how-to websites. Android 4.2 phones 1.Start camera application 2.Hit the Settings button 3.Scroll down and find the GPS Tag option and turn it off In older versions, the option may be called “Store Location,” but is it essentially the same process. BlackBerry 6.0 and 7.0 RIM suggests through the online documentation that disabling geotagging be done on BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which would work from an admin’s point of view if an agency uses BES. If not, to turn the setting off on an individual BlackBerry phone: 1.Open Camera 2.Set the Location icon to “Disabled” For some earlier versions, hit the Menu and Option buttons before changing the setting.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 23:25:34 +0000
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