A retired detective recently explained why we should think twice before sending people we meet on dating apps pictures they didn’t already see on our Tinder profiles.
It can be a little too easy to work ourselves up and think that danger is lurking around every corner, but it is an unfortunate truth that some people out there are waiting for us to get careless.
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But at the same time, there are others who are just as aware of that and are willing to share the know-how we can use to protect ourselves whether we’re camping on our own , stuck in a car that we don’t feel entirely comfortable in , or find ourselves having to let someone into our homes .
However, one thing these scenarios have in common is that the dangers we face in all of them tend to be obvious to us. But it’s a lot harder to deal with a situation that we unknowingly made unsafe for ourselves days ago.
And that’s exactly the scenario one retired detective is now giving us the right advice to avoid.
On May 26, a mom who goes by persnicketybox on TikTok shared a tip for parents to stay on top of what their children are up to.
As she explained, the idea for this video came about after her son sent her a text asking if he can stay at his friend’s house until 11 because they were on such a hot streak while playing basketball.
Her response was innocuous enough but she soon showed that the really important part of the exchange came after she downloaded the photo he sent her.
As she demonstrated, some phones well let you click on an “I” symbol in the camera roll that provides information about the metadata of that picture.
And through that information, she revealed that she not only knew where and when that photo was actually taken, but also what camera was used to take it.
Some of her commenters pointed out that this isn’t always going to work because it’s possible to change a photo’s metadata to hide a photo’s time and location, but this would nonetheless prove to be important information when someone else stitched the video.
Because while the metadata of a raw photo like the one the woman’s son sent her may not be so reliable for those receiving it, it can be a serious problem for those who send them.
That’s what one retired detective who started a firm called Killer Bee Tactical told his TikTok audience.
In his words, “If you’re online dating, you send photos to a stranger—you just sent them where you were. So if you’re standing on your porch when you took the photo, that could be an issue.”
As he told Bored Panda, that data is one of the ways he and his colleagues used to locate predators when he was dealing with crimes against children.
Fortunately, his video outlined a fairly simple way to send the photos you want to send while still keeping your location safe from potential stalkers.
We can see here that he said a screenshot doesn’t contain the same metadata that a raw photo does so it’s better to keep the photo to yourself and send the screenshot instead.
While talking to Bored Panda, he also advised being aware of your background when you send someone a photo. Because if you’re taking it in front of your house or on your street, it’s not as hard to narrow down that location through image searches as we may have expected.
Stay safe out there.
h/t: Bored Panda