I have location services turned on in my mobile. I don't mind if someone manages to 'find' my location, takes pains to reach there and mug me. You may be bothered if he does this to you, or may be, like me, you may not.

Now, what if someone tracks your child? What if he knows to which school she goes or where she spends her evening (the nice park in your neighbourhood?). What if he manages to find out that she goes to the aerobics class every day at 6 a.m.?

You may say, "I have the mobile. How can someone track my daughter?" That's a good question. But unfortunately, the answer is yes, your child can be tracked through your phone.

Are you aware that your phone has location tracking? No? If so, and if you don't wan't to be tracked, turn it off (it's there in the settings. Search. I can't list out the settings for the thousands of phones out there).

The phone knows where you were. How do others know where you were. Or worse, how do they know the places frequented by your daughter?

Do you remember the day your daughter was in the school's annual day function? Do you remember you clicked a few pictures of her dancing in the programme, and that you posted them in Facebook?

The next day, when you dropped her in the aerobics class with her new dress, you thought how cute she was. You clicked a few pictures and yes, posted them in Facebook?

Now, do you remember whether the location settings were on or off in the phone? Did the phone's camera ask some question and you clicked "yes'" absent-mindedly? Are you aware of what it asked before you clicked "yes"? Some phone cameras ask you whether you would like to turn on 'location tagging'. If you didn't know what it was and had clicked 'yes' or 'ok', every photo taken by you after that would have the location embeded in it. When you uploaded the photos to Facebook or emailed them to your friends, the location tag would have tagged along.

If you have a few tech-savvy "unwell-wishers", they can track the location and time of each photo and build a fairly accurate map of what you and your child do - with the time and place. That's it.

The worst part is that in many smartphones, location tagging (or geotagging) is turned on by default. Of course, you can always turn it off, but for doing that, in the first place, you must have been aware of the fact.

A web site icanstalku.com (wait...don't rush to open the site. It's closed now) showed what can be done with the meta data in uploaded pictures. The meta data, apart from your location, has information about the phone and the settings. It can even tell whether flash was used.

Any tech savvy criminal tracking the meta data, can use the location info from the pictures of your child you keep posting in Facebook and can easily plan his next "move".

But, if it is so dangerous, why do phones have it? As I have said in the beginning, I don't mind people tracking me. For me, the location data helps me with information about the exact place the picture was taken. If you go trekking often, the pictures you have taken with the geo-tagging facility will enable you to know exactly where it was taken.

So, what is the best way out?

If you don't want ANY information in your pictures, go to the phone's settings and ensure that the geo-tagging and location tracking is not enabled. If you would like to have your location in your photos, but don't want it to appear in the web, try using tag stripping software (just Google for 'Exim tag stripper' or 'Exim tag remover'. Before uploading the pictures to any social media site, strip the pictures of all Exim tags.

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