Children and Geotagged Images: Quantitative Analysis for Security Risk Assessment

This paper investigates the levels of geocoding images with children pictures, and discusses privacy and safety issues that may affect children. This study analyzed the number of geocoded images of children’s pictures on Flickr, a popular image-sharing site. For 50 of the top most expensive residential zip codes in the U.S., the number of images that had gelocation tags was counted. Results showed significant number of images with children’s faces that had geotagged information. The location information could possibly be used to locate a child’s home or other location based on information publicly available on Flickr. Publishing geolocation data raises concerns about privacy and security of children when such personalized information is available to Internet users who may dubious reasons for accessing this data. People should understand the implications of this technology and post only appropriate data in order to protect themselves and their children.