Photos from sensitive places pose a challenge in telling stories. While conversations often center on creative ways to shoot a photo, or how to obscure someone’s face or location, one important factor tends to be neglected.

Digital photos have invisible fingerprints. It’s called metadata and it includes a long list of information about the exposure, the time the photo was taken … and the exact place, called the geotag. If someone downloads your photo, they can quickly see all of that information.

Most of today’s smartphones and many digital cameras have this GPS-based feature. This article explains how to find geotags on existing photos.

The best way to avoid this problem is to make sure GPS information is never recorded.

To turn off geotagging:

iPhone: Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Camera > choose “Never,” for regarding location access.

Android

To remove geotags from existing photos:

iPhone instructions. You will need a free app called Koredoko, or another app listed in the article.

Windows instructions.

If none of these work for you, try this link, or simply Google “remove geotags from (name of your device) photos.”