Geo-tagging is all too much?

Geo-tagging and location based services have been hailed as the next revolution in online communication and digital media. Location based communication is supposed to make the consumer’s life better with communication that is even more relevant to the consumer by taking their current location into account. Numerous great examples of location based services are starting to pop up around us. Some of them very useful and others being developed purely with the geek in mind. Some great examples include…

• Crowd sourcing applications that allow you to upload GPS co-ordinates of places that cops hide in the bushes with their laser cameras. This database is then synced with your GPS enabled cellphone that warns you when you are driving by any known cop hideouts in the area.

• Location based advertising. Advertising that is served to you based on your location. So instead of you getting adverts for stuff that is miles away from you, you get get adverts for specials at the neighborhood restuarant.

• Need to catch up on some sleep while on the public transport? Program the GPS location of where you want to get off into your cellphone and then relax and catch a quick snooze. Your cellphone will trigger an alarm to wake you once you get near your stop.

• Your’re in a store wondering if that thing you are about to buy is the best price around. No problem, just scan the bar code using your cellphone camera and fire up the Shop Savvy application. It will read in the bar code and check to see if there are any better deals online or in the area around you.

While the above applications may sound like they empower users even more, location based data exposes us to even more dangers out there.

As more and more devices are starting to tag media with location based info we are starting to expose more information about ourselves to complete strangers, than we might be comfortable with. Consider this.

Your 3G iPhone tags every photo that you take with location based data. You’re having a innocent dinner party at home with your friends. You decide to take out your 3G iPhone and take some photos. Next day at work, you upload the photos to Flickr and invite your friends to see them. It just so happens that in some of your shots you can see your brand new 50 inch LCD TV, XBOX 360 and your top of the range iMAC. What you have unwittingly done is given a potential criminal a catalog of what’s in your house and the exact address of your house.

Now if you use other social media sites that expose status and location based info such as twitter, then the potential criminal can even work out when you are not at home, so that its easier to relieve you of those lovely possession that you’ve cataloged for him.

Just some food for thought.