1. Geotagging Safety Geotags and Location-Based Social Networking:
Introduction
What is geotagging?
Location-based social networking applications
Security Concerns
Protecting your safety & other’s.
Geotagging Safety 2011

2. National Safety Officer Brief - Winter Board 2011

3. Introduction
In August of 2010, Adam Savage, of “Myth Busters,” took a photo of his vehicle using his smart phone. He then posted the photo to his Twitter account including the phrase “off to work.”
Since the photo was taken by his smart phone, the image contained metadata revealing the exact geographical location the photo was taken.
So by simply taking and posting a photo, Savage revealed the exact location of his home, the vehicle he drives and the time he leaves for work.
Web Photos That Reveal Secrets, Like Where You Live By KATE MURPHY Published: August 11, 2010
Adam Savage, host of the popular science program “Mythbusters,” posted a picture on Twitter of his automobile parked in front of his house that was geotagged.
When Adam Savage, host of the popular science program “MythBusters,” posted a picture on Twitter of his automobile parked in front of his house, he let his fans know much more than that he drove a Toyota Land Cruiser.
Instructions on how to disable the geotagging feature of an Android phone.
The ICanStalkU.com Web site provides step-by-step instructions for disabling geotagging on the iPhone.
How Geotags Unlocked a 'MythBuster's' Location
Embedded in the image was a geotag, a bit of data providing the longitude and latitude of where the photo was taken. Hence, he revealed exactly where he lived. And since the accompanying text was “Now it’s off to work,” potential thieves knew he would not be at home.
Security experts and privacy advocates have recently begun warning about the potential dangers of geotags, which are embedded in photos and videos taken with GPS-equipped smartphones and digital cameras. Because the location data is not visible to the casual viewer, the concern is that many people may not realize it is there; and they could be compromising their privacy, if not their safety, when they post geotagged media online.
“I guess it was a lack of concern because I’m not nearly famous enough to be stalked,” he said, “and if I am, I want a raise.”
Mr. Savage said he knew about geotags. (He should, as host of a show popular with technology followers.) But he said he had neglected to disable the function on his iPhone before taking the picture and uploading it to Twitter.
“I’d say very few people know about geotag capabilities,” said Peter Eckersley, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, “and consent is sort of a slippery slope when the only way you can turn off the function on your smartphone is through an invisible menu that no one really knows about.”
But others may not be so technologically informed or so blasé about their privacy.
Still, Mr. Savage has since turned off the geotag feature on his iPhone, and he isn’t worried about the archived photo on Twitter because he has moved to a new residence.
Indeed, disabling the geotag function generally involves going through several layers of menus until you find the “location” setting, then selecting “off” or “don’t allow.” But doing this can sometimes turn off all GPS capabilities, including mapping, so it can get complicated.
A handful of academic researchers and independent Web security analysts, who call themselves “white hat hackers,” have been trying to raise awareness about geotags by releasing studies and giving presentations at technology get-togethers like the Hackers On Planet Earth, or Next HOPE, conference held last month in New York.
A person’s location is also revealed while using services like Foursquare and Gowalla as well as when posting to Twitter from a GPS-enabled mobile device, but the geographical data is not hidden as it is when posting photos.
The Web site ICanStalkU.com provides step-by-step instructions for disabling the photo geotagging function on iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Palm devices.
Many of the pictures show people’s children playing in or around their homes. Others reveal expensive cars, computers and flat-screen televisions. There are also pictures of people at their friends’ houses or at the Starbucks they visit each morning.
Their lectures and papers demonstrate the ubiquity of geotagged photos and videos on Web sites like Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Craigslist, and how these photos can be used to identify a person’s home and haunts.
By downloading free browser plug-ins like the Exif Viewer for Firefox (addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3905/) or Opanda IExif for Internet Explorer (opanda.com/en/iexif/), anyone can pinpoint the location where the photo was taken and create a Google map.
Moreover, since multimedia sites like Twitter and YouTube have user-friendly application programming interfaces, or A.P.I.’s, someone with a little knowledge about writing computer code can create a program to search for geotagged photos in a systematic way. For example, they can search for those accompanied with text like “on vacation” or those taken in a specified neighborhood.
“Any 16 year-old with basic programming skills can do this,” said Gerald Friedland, a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. He and a colleague, Robin Sommer, wrote a paper, “Cybercasing the Joint: On the Privacy Implications of Geotagging,” which they presented on Tuesday at a workshop in Washington during the Advanced Computing Systems Association’s annual conference on security.
By looking at geotags and the text of posts, Mr. Sommer said, “you can easily find out where people live, what kind of things they have in their house and also when they are going to be away.”
The paper provides three examples of so-called cybercasing that use photos posted on Twitter and Craigslist and a homemade video on YouTube.
“Our intent is not to show how it’s done,” he said, “but raise awareness so people can understand their devices and turn off those options if they want to.”
ICanStalkU.com, developed by the security consultants Larry Pesce of the NWN Corporation in Waltham, Mass., and Ben Jackson of Mayhemic Labs in Boston, uses a more direct approach to warning about the potential dangers of geotags. The site displays a real-time stream of geotagged photos posted on Twitter; the person who posted the photo also gets a notification via Twitter.
In the latter category was Cristina Parker of El Paso, who sells appliances part-time at Kmart and also manages social media for small companies. ICanStalkU.com notified her last week that a photo she had posted on Twitter of her Chihuahua, Zipp, also revealed where she lived.
“The reaction from people is either anger, like ‘I’m going to punch you out,’ or ‘No duh, like I didn’t already know that’ or ‘Oh my God, I had no idea,’ ” Mr. Pesce said.
“I immediately tweeted back to find out what I can do about it,” said Ms. Parker. The site sent her a Web link to instructions on how to turn off the geotag function on her LG Ally smartphone. “It’s definitely good to know for me personally and because of my social media work, too,” she said
Because of the way photographs are formatted by some sites like Facebook and Match.com, geotag information is not always retained when an image is uploaded, which provides some protection, albeit incidental. Other sites like Flickr have recently taken steps to block access to geotag data on images taken with smartphones unless a user explicitly allows it.
“There are so many places where people upload photos, like personal blogs and bulletin boards,” said Johannes B. Ullrich, chief technology officer of the SANS Technology Institute, which provides network security training and monitors the Internet for emerging security threats.
But experts say the problem goes far beyond social networking and photo sharing Web sites, regardless of whether they offer user privacy settings.
“You need to educate yourself and your friends but in the end, you really have no control,” he said, adding that he was considering writing a program to troll the Internet for photos with geotags corresponding to users’ home addresses.
Protecting your privacy is not just a matter of being aware and personally responsible, said Mr. Sommer, the researcher. A friend may take a geotagged photo at your house and post it.
“I’m beginning to think there may be a market for it.”
Geotagging Safety 2011

4. Does a stalker know where you live?
Introduction
The following was published in Wired Magazine in 2009: “I ran a little experiment. On a sunny Saturday, I spotted a woman in Golden Gate Park taking a photo with a 3G iPhone. Because iPhones embed geodata into photos that users upload to Flickr or Picasa, iPhone shots can be automatically placed on a map. At home I searched the Flickr map, and score—a shot from today. I clicked through to the user’s photo stream and determined it was the woman I had seen earlier. After adjusting the settings so that only her shots appeared on the map, I saw a cluster of images in one location. Clicking on them revealed photos of an apartment interior—a bedroom, a kitchen, a filthy living room. Now I know where she lives.”
I Am Here: One Man's Experiment With the Location-Aware Lifestyle By Mathew Honan
I'm baffled by WhosHere. And I'm no newbie. I built my first Web page in 1994, wrote my first blog entry in 1999, and sent my first tweet in October My user number on Yahoo's event site, Upcoming.org: 14. I love tinkering with new gadgets and diving into new applications. But WhosHere had me stumped. It's an iPhone app that knows where you are, shows you other users nearby, and lets you chat with them. Once it was installed and running, I drew a blank. What was I going to do with this thing?
The location-aware future—good, bad, and sleazy—is here. Thanks to the iPhone 3G and, to a lesser extent, Google's Android phone, millions of people are now walking around with a gizmo in their pocket that not only knows where they are but also plugs into the Internet to share that info, merge it with online databases, and find out what—and who—is in the immediate vicinity. That old saw about how someday you'll walk past a Starbucks and your phone will receive a digital coupon for half off on a Frappuccino? Yeah, that can happen now.
Simply put, location changes everything. This one input—our coordinates—has the potential to change all the outputs. Where we shop, who we talk to, what we read, what we search for, where we go—they all change once we merge location and the Web.
I wanted to know more about this new frontier, so I became a geo-guinea pig. My plan: Load every cool and interesting location-aware program I could find onto my iPhone and use them as often as possible. For a few weeks, whenever I arrived at a new place, I would announce it through multiple social geoapps. When going for a run, bike ride, or drive, I would record my trajectory and publish it online. I would let digital applications help me decide where to work, play, and eat. And I would seek out new people based on nothing but their proximity to me at any given moment. I would be totally open, exposing my location to the world just to see where it took me. I even added an Eye-Fi Wi-Fi card to my PowerShot digital camera so that all my photos could be geotagged and uploaded to the Web. I would become the most location-aware person on the Internets!
The trouble started right away. While my wife and I were sipping stouts at our neighborhood pub in San Francisco ( °N, °W), I casually mentioned my plan. Her eyes narrowed. "You're not going to announce to everyone that you're leaving town without me, are you? A lot of weirdos follow you online."
Sorry, weirdos—I love you, but she has a point. Because of my work, many people—most of them strangers—track my various Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, and blog feeds. And it's true; I was going to be gone for a week on business. Did I really want to tell the world that I was out of town? It wasn't just leaving my wife home alone that concerned me. Because the card in my camera automatically added location data to my photos, anyone who cared to look at my Flickr page could see my computers, my spendy bicycle, and my large flatscreen TV all pinpointed on an online photo map. Heck, with a few clicks you could get driving directions right to my place—and with a few more you could get black gloves and a lock pick delivered to your home.
To test whether I was being paranoid, I ran a little experiment. On a sunny Saturday, I spotted a woman in Golden Gate Park taking a photo with a 3G iPhone. Because iPhones embed geodata into photos that users upload to Flickr or Picasa, iPhone shots can be automatically placed on a map. At home I searched the Flickr map, and score—a shot from today. I clicked through to the user's photostream and determined it was the woman I had seen earlier. After adjusting the settings so that only her shots appeared on the map, I saw a cluster of images in one location. Clicking on them revealed photos of an apartment interior—a bedroom, a kitchen, a filthy living room. Now I know where she lives.
Geo-enthusiasts will assure you that these privacy concerns are overplayed: Your cell phone can be used to pinpoint your location anyway, and a skilled hacker could likely get that data from your mobile carrier. Heck, in the UK, tracking mobile phone users is as simple as entering their number on a Web site (as long as they give permission). But the truth is, there just aren't that many people who want to prey on your location. Still, I can't help being a little skittish when I start broadcasting my current position and travel plans. I mean, I used to stop newspaper delivery so people wouldn't realize I was out of town. Now I've told everyone on Dopplr that I'm going to DC for five days.
And location info gets around. The first time I saw my home address on Facebook, I jumped—because I never posted it there. Then I realized it was because I had signed up for Whrrl. Like many other geosocial applications, Whrrl lets you cross-post to the microblogging platform Twitter. Twitter, in turn, gets piped to all sorts of other places. So when I updated my location in Whrrl, the message leaped first to Twitter and then to Facebook and FriendFeed before landing on my blog, where Google indexed it. By updating one small app on my iPhone, I had left a giant geotagged footprint across the Web.
A few days later I had another disturbing realization. It's a Tuesday and I'm blowing off a work meeting in favor of a bike ride through Golden Gate Park ( °N, °W). Suddenly it hits me—since I would later post my route online with the date and time, I would be just a Google search ("Mat Honan Tuesday noon") away from getting busted. I'm a freelancer, and these are trying economic times. I can't afford to have the Internet ratting me out like that.
To learn how to deal with this new openness, I met with Tom Coates at Caffe Centro ( °N, °W). Coates started Fire Eagle, a sort of location clearinghouse: You tell Fire Eagle where you are, and it sends that info to a host of other geoapps, like Outside.in and Bizroof. Not only does Fire Eagle save you from having to update the same information on multiple programs, it also lets you specify the level of detail to give each app—precise location, general neighborhood, or just the city you're in. The idea is that these options will mitigate privacy concerns. In addition to this, as Coates puts it: "You have to have the ability to lie about your location."
Any good social geoapp will let you type in a fake position manually, Coates says. Great news; I didn't need to get busted for missing meetings—or deadlines—ever again.
I was starting to revel in the benefits of location awareness. By trusting an app (iWant) that showed me nearby dining options, I discovered an Iraqi joint in my neighborhood that I'd somehow neglected. Thanks to an app (GasBag) that displayed gas stations with current prices, I was able to find the cheapest petrol no matter where I drove. In Reno, one program (HeyWhatsThat) even gave me the names and elevation profiles of all the surrounding mountains. And another (WikiMe), which displayed Wikipedia entries about local points of interest, taught me a thing or two about the San Francisco waterfront. (Did you know the Marina District exists largely because a land speculator built a seawall in the 1890s?) These GPS tools were making me smarter.
And more social. While working downtown one day, it looked like I was going to have to endure a lonely burrito lunch by myself. So I updated my location and asked for company. My friend Mike saw my post on Twitter and dropped by on his way to the office. Later, I met up with a couple of people I had previously known only online: After learning I would be just around the corner from their office, we agreed to get together for coffee. One of them, it turns out, works in a field I cover and gave me a tip on a story.
But then, two weeks into the experiment, I bumped into my friend Mindy at the Dovre Club ( °N, °W). She mentioned my constant updates, which she'd noticed on Facebook. "It seems sort of odd," she said with a note of concern. "I've been a little worried about you. I thought, 'Wow, Mat must be really lonely.'"
I explained that I wasn't actually begging for company; I was just telling people where I was. But it's an understandable misperception. This is new territory, and there's no established etiquette or protocol.
This issue came up again while having dinner with a friend at Greens ( °N, °W), an upscale vegetarian restaurant. Of course, I thought nothing of broadcasting my location. But moments after we were seated, two other friends—Randy and Cameron—showed up, obviously expecting to join us. Randy squatted at the end of the table. Cameron stood. After a while, it became apparent that no more chairs would be coming, so they left awkwardly. I felt bad, but I hadn't really invited them. Or had I?
There were also missed connections—lots of missed connections. Apple doesn't let applications from outside software makers run in the background on the iPhone—for a third-party app to work, it has to be the one currently on the screen. Apple says it does this to prevent random programs from sucking down your battery and degrading your phone's performance. As a result, iPhone location apps can't send out constant updates. This means that people are often showing up where you were, rather than where you are. On a Friday afternoon, for example, I posted an update looking for nearby friends to share a postwork beer downtown ( °N, °W). A short time later, I heard back from my friend Lisey, who wanted to meet up. But I had already moved on to Zeitgeist ( °N, °W), a beer garden in San Francisco's Mission District. I again updated my location. But the place was packed, so I decided to split and headed to Toronado ( °N, °W), a bar closer to home. Just after I left, I heard from Lisey again, who was now on her way to the Mission. I had accidentally dodged her twice. I later discovered that two more pals had shown up at Zeitgeist looking for me.
One way around such snafus is to use the Google phone, T-Mobile's G1. Unlike the iPhone, the G1 lets programs run in the background, so you can launch location-aware apps and keep them humming while you do other things—check , make calls, take pictures—or just drop the phone in your pocket.
I borrowed a G1 to see what it could do that the iPhone couldn't. One of the first apps I set up, Ecorio, tracked my every movement and used that data to generate a report card on my carbon footprint. Since I get around mostly on foot, bike, or mass transit, this program confirmed my suspicion that I personally was saving the earth. Another app, Locale, kicks in when you enter certain zones—you can set your ringer to go silent when you arrive at work, for instance. I used it to send messages to Twitter automatically when I came within a half mile of home or the Wired office. LifeAware not only tracks your phone, it also allows you to connect with other people running the app on their phones, showing you their current location. You can use it to monitor employees, your children, maybe even a spouse. Sadly, I couldn't get anyone to connect with me—for some reason, nobody wanted me to track their every movement.
These features were nice, but they didn't completely sell me on the G1. Sure, the iPhone 3G has limitations, but its popularity (6.9 million units sold in its first quarter) means there are more applications available for Apple's handset. One of my favorites is Twinkle, a Twitter widget that lets you see posts from users in your area, even if you don't subscribe to their feeds. Twinkle reminded me of what a great geoapp can do: take an existing service and make it more practical by adding location data. When flames shooting into the night sky appeared to be coming from a nearby hilltop, my Twinkle feed, not the local news, informed me that the fire was actually across the water on Angel Island.
Apps like Twinkle, of course, are just the beginning. The next round of location tools will be even more pervasive, pushy, and predictive. You'll be able to sort through your s by where you were when you sent them and read blogs written only by writers within your zip code. Everything with an engine is going to be tracked, so you'll know precisely where your bus, taxi, or airplane is at all times. We're going to see more data being pushed to devices as we enter and leave certain areas. And information on who's doing what and where will be crunched for even smarter services.
I was coming to love this new definition of self-centeredness. Then my experiment came to a screeching halt on Interstate 80 just east of Sacramento. I was screaming along at 85 miles an hour in my Civic Hybrid (it can too go that fast), cranking Lil Wayne while scanning for cops. Only I wasn't checking the rearview mirror; I was staring at an app that flags speed traps.
Suddenly an object loomed large in my windshield. A jade-colored Prius had slowed almost to a stop in front of me. I stomped the brakes and swerved onto the shoulder to avoid a hybrid mashup. My heart raced.
And that's when it hit me: I had gained better location awareness but was losing my sense of place. Sure, with the proper social filters, location awareness needn't be invasive or creepy. But it can be isolating. Even as we gradually digitize our environment, we should remember to look around the old-fashioned way. I took a deep breath, pulled back onto the highway, and drove home—directed by the Google Maps app on my iPhone, of course. And I didn't get lost once.
Does a stalker know where you live?
Geotagging Safety 2011

5. Introduction Geotagging Safety 2011
As the stories above indicate, privacy and security aren’t what they used to be. With advancements in technology, enhanced GPS capabilities and smart phones with built-in GPS, managing privacy and security is a fulltime job.
The military is always working to protect itself against security breaches, but with new technologies come new risks. Today, more than ever, it is vitally important that military leaders, soldiers and civilians understand what kind of data they are broadcasting and what they can do to protect themselves and their families. CAP members should be aware of these threats to their privacy and security in this rapidly changing environment.
Geotagging Safety 2011

6. What is geotagging?
Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification to photographs, video, websites and SMS messages. It is the equivalent of adding a 10-digit grid coordinate to everything you post on the internet.
Geotags are automatically embedded in pictures taken with smart phones . Many people are unaware of the fact that the photos they take with their smart phones and load to the Internet have been geotagged.
Photos posted to photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa can also be tagged with location, but it is not an automatic function.
Geotagging Safety 2011

7. Geotagging Photos Geotagging Safety 2011
Digital photos have used geotagging for quite some time. Certain formats like the JPEG format allow for geographical information to be embedded within the image and then read by picture viewers. This shows the exact location where a picture was taken.
Most modern digital cameras do not automatically add geolocation metadata to pictures, but that is not always true. Camera owners should study their camera’s manual and understand how to turn off GPS functions.
On photo sharing sites, people can tag a location on their photos, even if their camera does not have a GPS function. A simple search for “Afghanistan” on Flickr reveals thousands of location tagged photographs that have been uploaded.
Geotagging Safety 2011

8. Location-based Social Networking
Location-based social networking is quickly growing in popularity. A variety of applications are capitalizing on users’ desire to broadcast their geographic location.
Most location-based social networking applications focus on “checking in” at various locations to earn points, badges, discounts and other geo-related awards.
The increased popularity of these applications is changing the way we as a digital culture view security and privacy on an individual level. These changes in perception are also creating security concerns on an military and civilian level.
Geotagging Safety 2011

9. Foursquare http://foursquare.com
foursquare is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices. Users “check-in” at various places using a mobile website. They are then awarded points and sometimes “badges.”
Users of foursquare use the service to share their location with friends, meet new people and get coupons. Users can also connect and publish their “check ins” to Facebook and Twitter. If someone is not a friend on foursquare they can still track your whereabouts through Facebook.
foursquare has over 4 million users.
foursquare currently has iPhone, Android, webOS, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry applications.
Geotagging Safety 2011

10. Facebook Places http://www.facebook.com/places
Facebook’s “Places” is similar to foursquare in that it gives an individual’s location when the users posts information using a mobile application.
This feature is available by using the Facebook application for iPhone, touch.facebook.com and Android.
This function is automatically active on all Facebook accounts until disabled.
Geotagging Safety 2011

11. Gowalla http://gowalla.com
Gowalla is another location-based social networking application that functions much like Foursquare and Facebook Places.
Users can build a Passport which includes a collection of stamps from the places users have been.
Gowalla users can also post photos and submit tips at various locations.
Geotagging Safety 2011

12. SCVNGR http://www.scvngr.com/
• SCVNGR is a location-based social networking application that takes “checking in” a step further by allowing companies, educational institutions and organizations to build challenges inside the platform.
• Users are encouraged to complete the challenges in order to earn points, badges or real-life discounts and coupons.
Geotagging Safety 2011

13. Why are these applications potentially dangerous?
Establishes patterns: Services like MotionX (on right) and other location-based social networking applications allow strangers to track your movements every day. If they watch someone long enough they will know exactly when and where to find that person on any given day.
Exposes places of duty and home: By tracking movements and aggregating information, strangers can determine where someone lives and works.
Identifies location of personnel: If certain applications are used daily around civilian or military populations, a criminal can determine potential targets.
Geotagging Safety 2011

14. CAP Security Concerns
CAP partners with many outside agencies in day-to-day operations. Those agencies trust our members to be as security conscious as they are.
If we aren’t careful, we put our personnel at risk as well as theirs.
The future of our operations with outside agencies depends on our professionalism and our adherence to their operational security (OPSEC) guidelines.
Protect yourselves and your partners!
Our partners include:
USAF
Other DoD agencies
DEA
FEMA
Other Federal agencies
State & local EMAs
State & local law enforcement
Geotagging Safety 2011

15. More Security Concerns:
Tagging photos with an exact location on the Internet allows random people (think bad guys) to track your location and correlate it with other information.
CAP members, military members and civilians serve in areas all over the world. Some locations are public, others are classified. They should not tag their uploaded photos with a location. Publishing photos of classified locations can be detrimental to mission success and can jeopardize lives.
Geotagging Safety 2011

16. Military Security Concerns
The main function of location-based social networking applications is to broadcast a user’s specific location. Exposing member and unit locations gives the bad guy the upper hand.
One member exposing his/her location can affect the entire mission.
Deployed Soldiers, or Soldiers conducting operations in classified areas should not use location-based social networking services. These services will bring the enemy right to the your doorstep.
Geotagging Safety 2011

17. Protecting Your Safety How to avoid giving away TMI (Too Much Information)
Geotagging Safety 2011

18. Avoid geotags on your photo sharing apps. It can save your life!
Many photo sharing applications give the user the opportunity to geotag a photo. In some cases, these geotags can add context to a photo, but when it comes to your safety, think twice before geotagging your photos.
Users can delete geotagged photos, but once the information is out there, it’s out of the user’s hands. Even if posted briefly, a criminal can capture vital information and record your exact location.
for more info.
Geotagging Safety 2011

19. Avoid geotags on your photo sharing apps
Avoid geotags on your photo sharing apps. It can save your partners’ lives!
Many photo sharing applications give the user the opportunity to geotag a photo. In some cases, these geotags can add context to a photo, but when it comes to inter-agency operations, geotagging operational photos is not allowed.
Users can delete geotagged photos, but once the information is out there, it’s out of the user’s hands. Even if posted briefly, the criminal can capture vital information and record exact grid coordinates of civilian or military populations.
Social Media Fact:
Something as simple as loading a photo of your bunk in Afghanistan to Flickr, then geotagging it, can bring a mortar round right into your area of operation.
Geotagging Safety 2011

20. Turn off GPS function on phones!
One of the simplest ways to avoid displaying too much information is to disable the geotagging function on smart phones.
Since most smart phones automatically display geographical information, it takes a little more effort on the user’s part to protect their privacy.
It’s important that all users understand their specific systems and make efforts to turn off their phone’s geotagging function.
Geotagging Safety 2011

21. Summary Geotagging Safety 2011
Geotagging photos and using location-based social networking applications is growing in popularity, but in certain situations, exposing specific geographical location can be devastating to CAP missions.
CAP members should never tag photos with geographical location when loading to photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa.
CAP members should not use location-based social networking applications when at training or while on duty at missions where presenting exact grid coordinates could endanger CAP members and our partner agencies’ personnel.
It is advised that while members are engaged in CAP missions, they should turn off the GPS function of their smart phones. Failure to do so could result in compromising the mission and even put members’ families and properties at risk.
CAP members deciding to utilize location-based social networking sites should be aware of the default settings for the services and devises they use. It is strongly recommended that the users customize settings to be mindful of security, privacy, personal and group safety, and the success of CAP missions for America.
For more information:
operations_support/operational_security_opsec.cfm
Geotagging Safety 2011

22. Ready for the Quiz?
The presentation posted here is for classroom sharing as a resource. For individual review and to complete the associated quiz for this course, please log into eServices and go to the Online Safety Briefing application under “MY FAVORITES” on the left side reference column.
Thank you for your participation in CAP Safety through learning and safety habits.
Geotagging Safety 2011