Geotagging privacy?

Geotagging: The process of adding location information in the form of latitude and longitude to media allows others to identify where the photo was taken.

Here’s a thought: Geotagging is getting popular for instance Google Maps which shows photos taken in the area you are viewing by the public and placed on Picassa or Flickr which also offers the ability to geotag photos and search for photos by locality on a map. As a photographer myself I must admit it interesting to see what other photos have been taken at locations I’ve been to… that is provided somebody has geotagged a photo. GPS systems are also becoming more commonly used to automatically record the GPS position that photos or media was taken with a number of cameras now having GPS systems embedded in them. BUT I wonder if many people realise their camera might be automatically recording the position and the implications it has for privacy? For instance if you take a lot of photos at home the GPS information would indicate with somewhat accuracy where your home is. Now put two and two together and if you away from home and posting photos…. Or if you consider how careful we are to hide the personal information of children and here we are just handing out this information out.

So should we decrying the use of geotagging? Not in my viewpoint, but I am VERY much for educating everybody about the use of technology, its implications and making it easy to make choices. For instance with GPS tagging we aught to have the functionality not just for turning it off, but making it quick and easy to do so and obvious that its there. If its hidden it is only natural we forget about it. Post precessing we also aught to be more aware of the EXIF data that accompanies each photo and have the ability to remove certain data if we want. However, let me know your views.