When metadata is your enemy

During the riots in Washington’s Capitol Hill, protesters took dozens of photographs and videos. In total, about 56.7 terabytes of information.

They uploaded all of this to the social network Parler, which was later removed from Amazon Web Services, Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

All Parler messages uploaded that day were carefully archived and made publicly available.

Parler did not have a mechanism to remove sensitive metadata from its users’ videos before posting them online.
And this is where the fun begins

Metadata contains precise GPS coordinates, date and time, the user’s device and sometimes more private information.

All this allowed independent researchers to create entire maps on which each protester is marked with an accuracy of the minute. All this data has already been transferred to the FBI, more than 20 people have been detained.

It is worth mentioning that, according to the FBI , 5 people were killed in the riots, and explosive devices were planted near the offices of the Republican and Democratic National Committees.

Do not forget to use utilities to remove metadata from your photos and videos before publishing on the Internet.

There are many good utilities for these needs: for Android and PC.