I always knew you could geotag your photos, which is when the photos on a smartphone like the iPhone are tagged with latitude and longitude coordinates, but I never thought about the dangers of that tool. When you take a photo with your smartphone, then post it publicly online, the location of where those photos were taken is saved in the metadata. I certainly never thought someone could download software to grab the metadata, complete with the exact location, of those photos and then stalk (or worse) those children photographed.
I have to actually thank my mother for this information, which is VERY strange for ME (who used to write about technology) get news from my mother (who still has trouble opening Skype up properly after a year), about technology. Goes to show you, technology and technology news really is everywhere!
If you worry about such things like your children's safety and you post photos publicly online, make sure to turn off the geotagging service on your iPhone or other smartphone. If you have an iPhone you do this by going to the Settings, Location Services and then it has a list of which applications are using the GPS in your phone to geolocate you.
Many of the iPhone applications, like Around Me (that finds restaurants, gas stations etc...around you) or Sit or Squat (which shows you bathrooms in the area--very handy when you are pregnant), you might want to keep on, but you can turn it off just for the camera.
Don't be fooled it's not that a ton of stalkers are using this every day. It's not that easy and they'd have to really really want you or your kid to be going through this kind of trouble, but for me it's definitely worth turning off the service for a bit more safety.
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