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So Google is now preventing people from removing location data from photos taken with Pixel phones.
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So Google is now preventing people from removing location data from photos taken with Pixel phones.
Remember when Google's corporate motto was "don't be evil?"
Obviously, accurate location data on photos is more useful to a data mining operation like Google.
From Google: "Important: You can only update or remove estimated locations. If the location of a photo or video was automatically added by your camera, you can't edit or remove the location."
It's enshitification in action.
Source: https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6153599?hl=en&sjid=8103501961576262529-AP
#technology #tech @technology #business #enshitification #Android #Google @pluralistic #infosec
@ajsadauskas @technology @pluralistic I ran into this a while back.
The app and cloud service just don't have support for modifying the EXIF tags, so if *any* camera has added GPS data, you can't use Google Photos to change or remove it.
The estimated location is stored in the Google Photos database and can be modified within the app.
You *can* turn GPS off in the camera app.
@ajsadauskas @technology @pluralistic A few months ago I dug into ways to work around this with photos that had already been taken with the GPS coordinates. Annoyingly, you mostly have to save the photo, remove the tag, and re-upload it.
https://hyperborea.org/tech-tips/gps-remove/
There is Scrambled Exif which i find quiet convenient for removing exif data quickly before sharing pictures.
@ajsadauskas @technology @pluralistic (I take a lot of photos for iNaturalist and reference photos for OpenStreetMap editing, so I'm constantly turning GPS on for those, and then back off for personal photos, and sometimes I forget.)
@KelsonV
I use the OsmAnd app to take waypoint photos (with GPS info) for iNaturalist. These shots don't get uploaded to Google Photos unless I want them to. I usually copy them to my Download folder for later uploading to iNat.
So I could turn off GPS in the Photo app, and keep personal and iNat shots separate.
https://osmand.net/docs/user/plugins/audio-video-notes/#create-waypoints
@ajsadauskas @technology @pluralistic
@sohkamyung @ajsadauskas @technology @pluralistic I should give that a try! I use Vespucci for OSM, and it's similar in that it saves photos to its own folder, but it uses the default camera app, so again I have to turn GPS on before a mapping session and off again afterward.
@KelsonV
I tried using the OsmAnd Audio/Video plugin to take shots using the system photo app with Location Info disabled.
Photos I take directly using the photo app have no location info. But looks like location info is still available with shots taken using the OsmAnd plugin.
@ajsadauskas @technology @pluralistic
@KelsonV
Maybe you could try OSMTracker. It might use its own camera app to take shots.
https://learnosm.org/en/mobile-mapping/osmtracker/
On F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmtracker/
@ajsadauskas @technology @pluralistic