Dan Motzenbecker, MIT License
EXIF is a type of metadata that is embedded in photo files from most types of cameras and phones.
This metadata includes information about the device used to capture the photo, but also often includes the GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken.
Many users unknowingly share this information with the general public and site/app owners when uploading photos online.
This has been a common vector of privacy lapses, including cases where journalists have unintentionally published photos with geotagging data intact.
Recent press has also revealed the NSA’s collection of EXIF data in its XKeyscore program.
ExifExodus is a small piece of open-source code that runs directly in your browser and strips EXIF data out of your photos before you upload them.
You can run ExifExodus whenever you’re uploading photos by using its bookmarklet (available on the site)
When ExifExodus encounters a JPG file, it will remove the EXIF data by copying the pixels to a new image file, similar to taking a screenshot of something.
Alternatively, you can drop your files in the dropzone at the top of the site) and receive versions free of EXIF data. You can then save these new files and upload them wherever you’d like.
That’s certainly not the implication of this project. Metadata adds another dimension to photos and is valuable for preserving context. This project aims to educate and give users a choice in the matter of sharing it with specific services (and the web at large).
Yes. Although this prevents the general public from accessing your EXIF data, you should be aware that the end recipient is free to use or store the metadata before removing it.
The ExifExodus bookmarklet won’t work with any site that uses Flash (or any other proprietary plugins like Silverlight) to upload files. For such sites, use the dropzone converter, save the output files, and upload those instead.
ExifExodus only works with JPG files (which is the most common image format to carry EXIF metadata).
Dan Motzenbecker