Photos and Privacy: Are You Followed As Photographer And Your Subjects Safe?

Photo Problem

What does your photo reveal?

How Data Can Help You - Locate You In Emergency

I have looked at lots of photos on Wikipedia which show the type of camera and place. They get the place from a GPS reading built into the camera of smart phone. That's really handy. If you are floating out to sea and need help, lost in a snowstorm, trapped by an abductor, in a car which rolled off a road into a gully, your photo will tell anybody you send it to where you are.

Revealing Location Of Valuables
What about your own photos? Supposing a film star or a friend is showing their diamond engagemnt ring? You take a photo.

They change their mind and say, "I don't want my photo taken."

You agree not to put it on Facebook. Then you decide to just show the lovely ring but not the face which would reveal who it belongs to. The photo data might reveal the jewellery shop, the hotel, or the country.

Marketing Fusion and Ages

Marketing organisations use fusion. They piece together a mosaic of their customers. They know that elderly people buy walking sticks, that mothers buy nappies, that large families buy giant packs of rice. No surprises there. Older people read the Help The Aged magazines, whilst young mother are likely to read Mother and Baby or Parents. The readers of car magazines and bikers' magazines form another subgroup. Some categories overlap. Others are separate.

It doesn't happen every time. You could be buying goods or magazines for somebody else. But it happens more often than not.

Government Data

The UK government has already sold off your address to marketing companies. I once filled in a library car application. My name was mis-spelled, on their computer. My library card was printed with a C instead of an L. Years later I started getting information from companies spelling my name with a C.

Marketing Areas and Journals

The marketing people also know that the seafront in one remote resort has small bungalows; another area has opulent Hollywood mansions. They know that Irish people read Irish newspapers; Indians read newspapers in their language. Technical journals are read by people with Phds. By asking you two questions about yourself, they can guess another fact, or track it down from another survey.

Seasonal Buying

Sellers, insurers and burglars know that people buy gifts at Christmas time. The same applies to other national holidays. The same goes for weddings. Birthdays also attract advertisers. I am very a happy to be emailed by Café Rouge offering me free Champagne or sparkling white wine if I book a table for four or more, better still if the offer has no minimum persons requirement. Otherwise, if one person is ill with flu, we cancel the dinner, postpone it, find the voucher has expired and never go.

Hotel Customers

It is the same sort of piecing together information as is done by the shopkeeper who ask a tourist, 'which hotel are you staying in?' If you are staying in the five star hotel, he gets out his more expensive goods. If you are staying in a youth hostel, he find you something in your budget.

GPS

When my photos are stored on my computer, it's quite handy to have the rough location. Sometimes the location is wrong, off by a few miles. The GPS is at fault.

We were looking for a cemetery for a funeral in the car. The GPS was wrong. We were in the adjacent road, separated from the cemetery by a road of houses. The entrance was around the corner and down a side road.

Delay

However, I am getting increasingly wary about which photos I show. I often put up photos a week later, after I have changed location. I no longer feel guilty that my pictures are no longer news, that I have not shown a photo taken right this second. I am not into 'news'. I am into features.

Wikipedia warns about photos:

 A photo taken with a GPS-enabled camera can reveal the exact location and time it was taken, and the unique ID number of the device - this is all done by default - often without the user's knowledge. Many users may be unaware that their photos are tagged by default in this manner, or that specialist software may be required to remove the Exif tag before publishing. 

For example, a whistle-blower, journalist or political dissident relying on the protection of anonymity to allow them to report malfeasance by a corporate entity, criminal, or government may therefore find their safety compromised by this default data collection.

In December 2012, anti-virus programmer John McAfee was arrested in Guatemala while fleeing from alleged persecution^[15] in Belize, which shares a border. Vice magazine had published an exclusive interview on their website with McAfee "on the run"^[16] that included a photo of McAfee with a Vice reporter taken with a phone that had geotagged the image.^[17] The photo's metadata included GPS coordinates locating McAfee in Guatemala, and he was captured two days later.^[18]

According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the NSA is targeting Exif information under the XKeyscoreprogram.^[19]

The privacy problem of Exif data can be avoided by removing the Exif data using a metadata removal tool.^[20]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5448389/Facebook-personal-data-files-Australia-inquiry.html

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

How fast is your train? Get an ap!

Problem
How fast is this train? Is it as fast as it seems? Are we running on time? How can I impress colleagues, friends, strangers, the kids?

Answer
There are free aps (paid for by the advertising) which tell you your speed. They work pretty fast.

How do they work? By global positioning. I imagine you can use this on the motorway where (UK) signs telling you they can work out your average speed.

(I always thought those worked by an analysis of where you start and end and therefore the average speed over that distance in that time.)

You can also get a free altimeter as part of this speed ap or separately.

Story
My relative used the ap to measure the speed of the Stansted airport train, coming home to London. The train ran at 78 miles per hour. The London overground train was 38 m.p.h.

What Could You Measure?
You could also use it on a horse or elephant or camel. The system is working on the GPS, doesn't even know whether you are on a train or on horseback.

You can also measure your running, jogging and walking speed.

You could measure your child or toddler riding on a suitcase, granny on an electric cart, the electric cart zooming you around a railway station or an airport.

Measure your car, the bus, the long distance coach.

What about a plane? You are told to turn off your phone on the plane during taking off and landing. But at certain times mid-flight you might be told you can turn the phone on again. Usually on the planes which have a screen on the back of the seat in front there is a screen showing your distance travelled and estimated time of arrival and speed and height.

In a car the driver can see the speed on the speedometer. I often find I do not want to keep taking my eyes off the road. If you have children in the back they can keep you updated on your speed. This could be an amusement. Also help you keep within the speed limit.

Hours of fun for everyone.

Stansted Spelling
Whilst typing I was wondering how to spell Stansted. Somebody told me, "There's no second a. Stansted. Berkhamsted. They are all the same. Unfortunately, Hampstead Heath has a second a. However, you can remember is as the exception with the words Hampstead and Heath have matching end vowels.

Tips
https://appadvice.com/appguides/show/speedometer

Author
Angela Lansbury

More Silly Questions - On Place Names and Directions

Problem
People ask you silly questions. How do you answer?

Answer
Politely.

Stories
Singapore and Singlish
Where is Singapore?
When I first went to Singapore I did not know where it was. Many people in the UK and USA and elsewhere have heard of Singapore but don't know where it is, unless they stop over in Singapore on their way from America or Europe to Australia or New Zealand, on Singapore Airlines or an Australian airline.

There's even a book title about not knowing where Singapore is. "Is Singapore somewhere in China?"

For your information, Singapore is an island, city state, or both a city and a country, south of Malaysia (which in WWII was called Malaya).

The majority of the people are Chinese by race and they mostly speak Mandarin which they are taught at school, as well as English which is taught at school and used as a common language, for conversing with tourists, and the minorities who speak one of the four official Singapore languages, Indian language Tamil, or Malay. (Singlish is English spoken by people who are translating from Chinese, so that the grammar follows Chinese and drops past and future tenses, the words a and the, and adds la at the ends of sentences.

Where Is Sixth Avenue?
I got off a bus and asked a passer-by, "Do you know Sixth Avenue?"

She replied, "No, where is it?"

I was flabbergasted. "I don't know," I replied, "That's what I'm trying to find out."

The reply I was expected was either yes, (followed by directions), or, "Sorry, I'm not from round here."

Tips
Don't rely on local people to give you directions. If you need directions, ask somebody who is walking a dog, pushing a shopping trolley, or working nearby, of the local race and language, rather than a foreign visitor. Other good bets are people carrying maps, smart phones which might have GPS, groups at bus stops or in line.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Safety when travelling: credit cards, bags, bullet proof vests, life-saving

What can you do to prevent trouble, avoid trouble, or help the injured?

PREVENT OR AVOID ACCIDENTS OR BOTH?
Prevention and avoidance are different. To prevent means to go before (pre) and turn away trouble. To avoid means not going to something or some trouble already there. People often confuse the two words. But there is a big difference.

To prevent an accident you could slow down or put up slow down signs, improve the road, impose a speed limit. Take precautions. You can cause or prevent something from happening.

To avoid an accident you could take a diversion routing away from the traffic jam and the accident.
If you can't avoid it, you are stuck in the jam, witness it, or you are stuck nearby waiting.

Avoiding travelling
Americans are avoiding travelling overseas. Preventing themselves being on planes. Visitors to the UK from America in early December 2015 said their planes had about 160 seats filled in a plane seating about 300, which would usually be increasingly full in the days leading towards the Christmas holidays.

TEMPTING LOW PRICES
If you are courageous or phlegmatic, prices of airlines and hotels may come down in a keen marketing attempt to obtain more business, or a bigger share of the little available, or reluctant obligation because they have no choice.In London in previous years, hotels and restaurants were going out of business.

Why are prices lower?
Hotels lowered prices because they needed to do so. Hotels were the worst struck because they relied on foreigners coming in. Although Americans were a small percentage, they were the big spenders. Business people are often risk takers but had to cancel for insurance reasons.

Elderly Americans with time to travel and no families were the ones who had taken the expensive hotel suites. The older travellers were thinking now or never. The 50 and 60 plus were the main travellers. (More than the 70 year olds, fewer of them left. A UK study by Saga found this long ago, in fact their discovery led to the creation of their company. The seventies and older are in poorer health and have done their travelling. They also spent their retirement handout in their sixties. Result, a hotel loses only two bookings out of 100 rooms, but these two lost bookings are the £100 or £200 suites, and ten percent loss of income is the difference between profit and loss, cash flow problem.

So, price wise it is a good time to travel if you are courageous / foolhardy / phlegmatic.

CHECK GOVERNMENT WARNINGS
If your government issues a do not travel warming many forms of transport will cancel because of lack of demand or perceived heightened danger and they cannot get insurance and companies could be sued for sending staff into danger without insurance or ignoring public warnings.

MESSAGE SYSTEMS
In Asia in previous years a system of linked messages was set up. In case of any emergency such a tsunami or attack, certain people had the phone numbers of everybody in the group (embassies, schools, American nationals working in the city) and called them all by phone personally or sent out a mass mailing or mail shot to get everybody to a collection point, or into hiding.

EVACUATION
A system of relays was organised to get people on unmarked buses and vehicles along designated roads or off road cross-country routes leading to airports or sea ports for evacuation. A system of vehicles for emergency evacuation was also organised.You need a passport or copy of it so you body can be identified or you can get onto an evacuation vehicle.

EMERGENCY BAG
In Japan and the USA and other earthquake prone areas, the family has an emergency bag by the door; so if you have to run out in a hurry, you don't race around a collapsing building trying to find your passport or go back for your water bottle. The emergency bag contains photocopies of documents, identity, insurance, numbers to call for help, family contacts, food and water and first aid.

You can also make yourself a similar kit for travelling, then keep it in your hand luggage. When you evacuate a plane you should not delay others by stopping to reach into overhead lockers or block aisles with your luggage. You just run for the exit. Seconds count.

You want to be out of a crashed car on a motorway. The same goes for an aircraft which had crashed - get out before it explodes. In the dark you might so the right thing and run for the exit without your bag. Good. But you need your emergency kit in your pockets - your credit cards and something to eat. Chocolate, nuts - I am against forbidding nuts on planes. At least have nuts in unopened packets or tins or sealed in Tupperware type containers. Then you have a source of protein.

Imagine being stuck on a motorway for hours. Just a traffic jam. In a snow drift. Anywhere, waiting for reduce. Trapped under a collapsed buildings.

You could avoid travelling to major malls, stadiums, public events, restaurants and cafes and shops and stay home.

If you are that type. Others insist 'I'm not changing my life.' Or, 'If you change your life, you've let them win.'

ATTITUDES
Reasons are:
People may go to two extremes, seeking danger or being reclusive to avoid it, taking a middle path, or oscillating pendulum like between extremes. You may find your family and friends follow some of the following systems. To keep out of danger, you may decide to identify what's happening and mix with like-minded people, or rely on your own judgement and preparation.

Adventure (people who go to war or join the armed forces); attention seeking (desire to be in the newspapers as a hero, victim, villain, whatever); bravery; carelessness, curiosity (I wonder what it will be like, where's the crowd going); defiance, duty, fatalism (if your number's on it/ what will be will be); happy go lucky nature; ignorance; loneliness (prefer to be with in danger in company than alone); observers (journalists, photographers, war correspondents seeking news and events to record); sheepishness (follow the crowd into danger like lemmings, run with the crowd away from danger in a panic like rabbits; stay with the crowd like Wildebeest hoping those on the outside will be caught but those in the centre will survive - safety in numbers); patriotism (my country, right or wrong); precaution (prepare for the worst but hope for the best - quotation attributed to Benjamin Franklin); stoicism; suicidal - suicide by cop / can't cope - if they kill me at least I won't have to do my tax return.

SECURING POSSESSIONS
Credit cards /debit cards

DIVIDING CARDS
You could have one card at home, not in an empty house. You could leave your spare/emergency card  with a family member at another address. Even sent by courier to a safe place.
One system is to have one card at home or with a friend.

Divide CARD and CLOTHES
Some people have half of each person's clothes in the other person's suitcase. Makes no difference if all your luggage goes missing. But if one suitcase out of two is lost, you both have clothes.

Similarly you can divide your cards. Or swap cards. If both of you have one of your cards and one of your partner's cards, if one of you is robbed or in an accident, the other person still has a working card.

DEBIT / LIMIT CARD
Take out a new debit card. Open a new account for travels with a small amount in that account.

Then if the card is lost the thieves can only remove the amount you allowed yourself for your weekend stay. You cannot overspend. You cannot have your entire savings wiped out by an online theft. Nor by a card robbery whilst travelling.

BAGS
Consider whether hard cases are safer than soft cases. Consider safety of vehicles you buy or hire. Consider safety of airport transfer. (eg hotel car ,rather than hire car, or shuttle bus?). Decide which is the safest option.

Bullet proof vests
You might try to get away from military people who are a target. Or stand behind the police so their bodies and body armour protect you.

You can buy these on the internet. If heavy, they could slow you down when running.

A policeman told me that a high power automatic can cut through a tree. Same goes for a machete. You need to be behind a concrete wall. And/or in a bullet proof vest.

Reading newspaper reports of survivors of events ranging from WWI to WWII to recent, I have read reports of people saved by
a) The bible (in effect a thick book might be like a block of wood deflecting bullet)
b) A phone deflecting a bullet (old phones in your pockets?)
c) Any metal shield

Insurance
Check your travel insurance. You might be covered for illness, sickness, injury repatriation. You might not. Some insurances excluded hooliganism or riot. Our insurance would not cover our car for damage from crowds or falling fireworks on New Year's eve in Europe. Out hotel advised us to park off the street, not outside the hotel in a busy street, but just for that one night in a car park, whatever the cost it would be less than the stress of damage to the car.

Knife proof vests

Live-saving

CODED MESSAGES
When travelling when your children are travelling away from you have a coded message. To prevent strangers picking children up from school saying they were sent by Mummy, tell them nobody should pick you up without the code word or phrase or name.

Plan a signal message for children. For example, 'you need to get back for your swimming lesson' might mean we must get away from this character trying to pick us up in the market, so follow me hold my hand and if and when I run, hold my hand and run with me.

DISTRACTION WITH WORDS

Simply shout 'behind you' or shout 'George' and look over somebody's shoulder then run.

Life Saving - Appealing for help
At a recent Toastmasters International meeting we were treated to a talk on getting help to save your life. A woman in New York was attacked over a period of hours and many people heard or walked past but took notice and didn't get help.

The moral is don't rely on anybody in general to help. They all assume it's somebody' else\s duty or if nobody else is acting I can't or should not. Appeal directly to one person by addressing them, looking them in the eye and telling them exactly what to do. For example, 'Help - old man - call the police!'

DISTRACTION WITH BOTTLES OR COINS
Whether you are a victim or a bystander trying to help, if you have nothing else, distract an assail by throwing bottles or coins, ideally at their head or eyes so they blink and give the victim(s) a chance to run.

Apart from major incidents, there are a few nutters about, plus belligerent drunks. Keep well behind the yellow lines on station platforms when waiting for trains.

Putting yourself in danger, by climbing a mountain peak without taking safety gear, proper clothes and shoes, a charged phone, a GPS device, could put colleagues or rescuers in danger. Same goes for chasing your dog into high waves.

Maybe you can be the hero of the day and save somebody else's life. Or as the saying goes, the life you save my be your own.

Wishing you safe and happy travelling

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.