Given that many social networking apps show you the location in which the photo was taken as an option for geotagging posts, it's clear that the data is there.

I'll grant that users may not make the leap to thinking of building a full-on historical profile without being prompted in that direction...

> Given that many social networking apps show you the location in which the photo was taken as an option for geotagging posts, it's clear that the data is there.

I had literally no idea. None. Probably because I don't upload photos to social networking sites from my phone. So I'd be pretty shocked that Whatsapp could plot my movements despite not having access to location data...

And I think most users would be aware of this yes. But should they be expected to understand that this location data is different to the other location data and isn't secured at all by the "share your location" permission?

There's a map in the albums showing where all the pictures were taken. Also IOS creates memories(machine generated albums) with location names. You'll have to be pretty naive to think it wasn't storing location.

> You'll have to be pretty naive to think it wasn't storing location.

I think you'll have to be pretty naive to assume that users inherently realise that "photos have location attached" automatically leads to "third party app can read location in these photos" and can lead to "build a profile of you based on your photo locations".

It's not that people can't put these things together, it's that they don't ever really think about it. When you download a photo editing app you're thinking about editing a photo, not about the metadata you might be leaking in doing so.

exactly - users don't use logical deduction to work out what information an app is capable of inferring.

If i didn't give the app permission/information, it stands to reason that said app shouldn't be able to infer, or deduce it. If the app is able to do so, then they ought to be legally obligated to disclose this fact.

But those are both Apple apps. I wouldn't expect that, just because I gave access to FB or Twitter to see my photos, that they'd get the location of them too.

Interesting. I would have thought always that yes, if I'm moving an image around, its metadata goes with it unless I've specifically taken steps to strip it. I guess we've all had different introductions to this stuff.

Coincidentally, I have asked some non-technical people exactly this question. All of the people I asked didn't even understand that there was anything other than "my picture" in an image file. I would guess that if you pressed a lay-person to explain how Apple shows a map of where your photos were taken, they would guess that the information was stored separately.

That doesn't really make it evident that letting an app access a photo lets it access the photos location.

You and I both understand that that's metadata in the file, but non-tech users don't know that much -- they might simply have never though about it enough at all.

> Because users aren't actually all that aware of there being location data attached to their photos.

Users are stupid. iOS clearly asks you to allow the Camera app to access location, explaining it’s to tag photos.

Stupid? Perhaps in some cases. But are you perhaps expecting to much of a layperson? How are they supposed to know that the "access photos" permissions overrides the "location" permission because the "location" permission doesn't even apply to their photo location data.

Sure, we all know this. But this can't be taken for granted.

Do we expect regular users to appreciate that how the location data is stored as exif data within their photos rather than separately. I wouldn't expect this of most people.

Users are human beings. You can affix a derogatory label to them if you want, but deciding that they're not as smart as your ideal of what humans should be isn't useful to anyone except your ego I guess.