With the growing popularity of photo-sharing services, wedding couples and photographers might not realize the potential risk of privacy exposure through online sharing of their digital photos. The most popular image sharing format is JPEG. Users capture, share, download, and upload digital pictures, not knowing they may be sharing personal information. Most users are unaware of JPEG’s metadata feature.
Metadata What?
The most common definition for metadata is: data that describes data. This typically means adding text information to a text document, image, or any file. Metadata can be very powerful and is extremely flexible. The JPEG image file format can contain metadata, and can be used maliciously. Wedding couples that decide to share their wedding photos online should consider removing the metadata from their images.
Metadata can be added by a user, software, or a digital camera. The information embedded into a JPEG image can contain:
- Copyright Information
- Complete original image thumbnail
- Image manipulation software used: (Photoshop, Paintshop, Corel Draw)
- Text comments
- GPS location (Global Positioning Satellite)
- Serial numbers
- Text descriptions
- Camera make and model
- Date and time
- Camera software version
- Exposure and ISO mode
These are just samples of metadata that can be found in a typical digital wedding photo. Metadata in general, has many benefits when properly used. JPEGs that contain metadata can help both wedding couples and photographers to identity photo descriptions and properties such as digital camera settings, lighting information, geographical location, and previews.
Scenarios: How JPEG Metadata Exposes Our Privacy
Despite the general benefits of metadata, metadata could be unintentionally added without user knowledge by wedding photographers, online photo services, consumer image processing software, and popular screen saver / photo gallery slide show software. If a bride decides to share her wedding photos without removing the metadata, she could be unintentionally sharing her private information with the world. The following is a list of how JPEG metadata are created, often without users' knowledge:
- Popular photo preview and album programs
- Consumer photo slide show screen savers
- Online JPEG image description feature
- Online photo sharing services image commenting features
- Search engine image search identifier
- Professional photo editing programs used by wedding photographers
- Professional batch image processing applications
- Digital photograph archive utilities
Metadata is often manipulated by hackers, spam initiators, and non-FCC compliant online marketing agencies to expose the consumers' private identity, in order to gain profit by selling the consumers' private information to potential advertisers.
It is also possible for the metadata to contain a copy of the original digital picture; the pre-edited version. Someone savvy with inspecting the inner contents of such photograph would be able to extract that image.
History: Malicious JPEG Metadata’s More Serious Offense
Earlier Windows based PCs and Apple computers were vulnerable to an exploit that used metadata to potentially harm a computer. A user would open an email that contained a jpg (or even a website with a malicious jpg). The jpg was modified to contain a massive amount of metadata. The metadata would trigger a specific type of error. The error would allow an attacker to load additional metadata that was embedded into the jpg to harm or even possibly take control of a user’s computer. Fortunately, these exploits were quickly fixed. This article's bibliography contains links to further educate users on the exploits and fixes.
Other Benefits of Removing JPEG Metadata
In addition to privacy concerns, brides and grooms who want to share their wedding photographs across the internet should consider one of the biggest reasons for removing metadata - file size. In some cases, metadata can account for over 50% of an image’s file size. Large embedded thumbnails, keywords, metadata from a digital camera, and photo-manipulation software can create a hefty image.
Many online social networks and photo-sharing services have file size storage and upload limits. A bride uploading her photos might be a little shocked when she realizes she doesn’t have enough space to store her precious wedding memories. Professional wedding photographers could also benefit from the reduced JPEG file size; many of them have to deal with large quantity of digital archives on a daily basis.
Fortunately, there are programs available to remove JPEG metadata.
The Solution - Remove Unnecessary Metadata Information
Although the complete removal of JPEG metadata is lacking from easy-to-find commercial consumer software, a handful of programs exist; often developed by independent imaging enthusiasts. Created by Ian Fieggen, JPGExtra is one of those solutions: It is an extremely fast, lightweight, and user friendly program designed to remove JPEG metadata. It offers many features, including:
- Processing Display
- Analyze Only
- Sub-Directory Processing
- Complete JPEG Metadata removal and Backup
- File Logging
Removing a JPG’s metadata with JPGExtra is extraordinarily simple: Click "Browse" to navigate to the directory where your wedding images are stored. You can start by checking the "Analyze Only / Don't Modify" option. Then click the large "Start Processing" button to have JPGExtra analyze your wedding photographs and view how much data is removable.
Once you’re ready, simply uncheck "Analyze Only / Don't Modify" and remove the metadata by clicking the large "Start Processing" button. If you want to just remove metadata from a single photograph, just double-click the filename.
Next: (Page 2) An interview with JPGExtra's creator Ian Fieggen
JPEG Metadata Privacy Alert Bibliography
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