Makernotes question..

bibblebobble

hi there,

i was looking through exif info from my casio camera - none of my pics have gps info in them, but i was surprised to see an entry in makernotes that says "hometown city". what is it, and how does it get its info? most of them say things like "%03@". (or a different number instead of the 3, seems to be random). occasionally they'll also say "london", although i don't live there. another few say "(x amount of) bytes binary data".

is this a privacy risk, or is it nothing to worry about?

cmason

Exactly what risks are you frightened of from your camera? Maker notes can be for exposing info with the image, or as a place for the camera to store info it needs to support camera features. Often times the makernotes are cryptic, because they are not meant to be human readable.

Its likely that Casio has some app or screen that allows you to tag a location as 'home' or perhaps enter an address as your home (assuming your camera has GPS). This way, you can see all the photos taken at 'home' or some other such feature. If you don't want photos you share to include this info, then don't give it to the camera, or don't include EXIF in your images.

ziggy53

bibblebobble wrote: »

... nothing to worry about?

As user "cmason" mentioned, "you" are mostly in control of the extended MakerNote section through camera settings and software in post. Each manufacturer has the ability to add field extensions to the image metadata header, which is where EXIF, IPTC, embedded XMP and MakerNotes data (others too) may be stored.

If you are really concerned, and if you are a Perl user, you can use the command line ExifTool by Phil Harvey (freeware) to clear this header of all information as a precaution. (Windows users can also use a Windows executable GUI version.)

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/