Take a photo on any digital camera or smartphone and it's not just the pixels that are saved. The image also gets a bunch of metadata appended to it, including details of when it was taken and the device used. If your phone or camera has a GPS chip, this information can include your exact location at the moment you captured the shot.

If sharing pictures of pets is not to give away your home address, then you must be mindful of what metadata your photos hold. Any time a photo goes beyond the audience of just you, it’s important to think about the metadata attached to it—and if needed, you should delete the location stamp.

For example, both Google Photos and Apple Photos can sort your photo library based on where pictures were taken. You can view this data by tapping on a picture in Android or clicking an info button for web versions. On Windows and macOS, right-click on an image to open properties that will show you the GPS coordinates.

To clear out any location information, some photo editors like Apple Photos allow you to edit and remove locations from your images. Other options include copying and pasting the image as a new file or using dedicated tools such as ExifTool. Just remember, disabling location access on your camera app means no GPS details are saved but also means you can't use services that rely on location data.

As our photos reveal more about us, we must learn to edit wisely and protect our privacy in the digital age.