Removing geotag data from JPGs

Just a quick note, these days most cameras automatically geotag photos which is pretty cool, especially when taking travel photos, but sometimes you may not want everyone to know where a photo was actually taken. For example, a photo of your backyard could give away your home address which is probably not a great thing.

Its really easy to clear the geotag data with a great little tool called exiftool. I used this tool in an earlier blog post too and I find it really useful!

To install exiftool in Ubuntu:

$> sudo apt-get install libimage-exiftool-perl

Then executing exiftool followed by a jpg filename will output a whole bunch of exif data for you - some of which may have geolocation data:

$> exiftool image.jpg
ExifTool Version Number         : 8.60
File Name                       : image.jpg
Directory                       : .
File Size                       : 14 kB
…

The clear this geotag data out, simply issue this command:

$> exiftool -gps:all= image.jpg