Pixoul Photography

Most photojournalists have started tagging their photos with IPTC metadata to aid in copyrighting and indexing their massive collection of images. Some news organizations also require that all digital images be tagged to properly track and attribute the file during the production process. This metadata, however, can lead to some compromising moments if not properly sanitized or redacted before publication.

An article that ran in The Washington Post earlier this year sparked a flurry of activity as an anonymous source's location was seemingly outed by the metadata the photojournalist embedded in the photo attached to the article. The photo was eventually pulled from the Post's Web site but not before Slashdot readers posted the probable location of the source and later used Google Maps to track down locations mentioned in the article. Although not a career-ending move the situation could have turned out much worse had the source's real name been left in the metadata.