Internet Privacy 101 - Your Safety Guide to Social Networking

Posted 09/30/2010 at 12:51pm | by Adam Berenstain

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Censor Your Flickr

Be choosy about what people see

Scenario:

You want to use Flickr to share pictures you’ve taken with an iPhone, but you don’t want to share the geotag data that could show your clingy former roommate where your new apartment is.

Solution:

Everyone knows that posting photos of people (yourself included!) in compromising situations on photo sharing sites like Flickr is a bad idea, but even “harmless” everyday snapshots can be cause for privacy concerns. Thanks to GPS-enabled smartphones and cameras, our photographs can include geotag data showing where they were taken, and not all your friends may appreciate having their places--or faces--broadcast to the world in your photostream. Fortunately, Flickr lets you manage both your photo albums and who gets to see them so you can share your snaps without having to share too much.

Hide the Geotags

Cover your tracks.

To allow only certain visitors to see EXIF (Exchangeable Image File) geotag data in your pictures, or to ensure that no one can, stay on that Privacy & Permissions page and, under “Defaults for new uploads,” click Edit next to “Import EXIF location data.” You’ll be asked to set permissions defining who can see where your pictures were taken much like those that control who’s allowed to view your pictures in the first place.

Batch-Edit Permissions

Batch-edit the permissions on all your photos at once.

Even if you change your privacy settings today, your past uploads may still be public. To fix that, click the Organize & Create tab, then click More Options at the bottom of the new page. In the resulting pull-down menu, you can choose to show photos according to their current privacy settings. Drag your public pictures into the workspace, then click the Permissions button in the workspace menu bar to change who can see, comment on, and tag them.

Block

If these precautions aren’t enough to keep a roommate, ex, or snippy photography critic out of your photostream, you can always block other Flickr users by clicking the “Block this person?” link on their profile page, choosing “Block” from their icon menu, or by deleting a comment from the offending user. Blocking prevents another person from interacting with you or your photos, and past interactions like shared tags, notes, and photo galleries will be deleted.

Lockdown

To review and edit your Flickr account’s privacy controls, log in and click the You tab at the top of the page, then choose Your Account. Click the Privacy & Permissions tab to set rules about who can do what with your pictures. Flickr’s default settings may be fine for most people, but don’t be afraid to tailor permissions to suit your needs.

Click the linked question marks to learn more about the Privacy & Permissions settings.

For instance, the “Who will be able to see, comment on, add notes, or add people” option lets you make your pictures public, limit their exposure to only friends and family, or make them completely private with just a few clicks. You can similarly limit or disallow picture downloads with the Global Settings at the top of the page.

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