Updated on November 30 with a new report into when Apple users will be able to stop this location tracking on their iPhones.
Apple’s next iPhone update promises a raft of game-changing upgrades, including a much fuller array of Apple Intelligence features and the option to change default messaging, phone and other apps. But while this all has major security and privacy considerations, Apple has also quietly decided to update a hidden tracking feature on your iPhone and you should change your settings as soon as iOS 18.2 goes live.
I’ve warned before about the hidden risks with location metadata embedded in the photos you take with your phone. While this helps search your photo album by location, it also provides those you send those photos an insight into your life you probably don’t want to share. You now have the option to turn off this metadata capture completely or remove it photo by photo, many social media apps also strip this metadata anyway, when you share photos. But this is all about to change.
ESET’s Jake Moore warns that “people often don’t realise how much data is hidden inside a simple photo. Metadata holds a staggering wealth of information hidden beneath an image, some of which can be personal data such as location which could be used to identify you along with other information often found online.”
With iOS 18.2, as reported by beta testers ahead of next month’s stable release, you can now go into the Photo settings under Privacy & Security and turn off location sharing app by app. So while you may want to keep your photos intact when you share using certain apps, any you use more widely with more people you should turn this off. If you have kids with phones, you need to turn this off completely.
Don’t expect this to be a universal feature when it launches, but most of the apps you use regularly to share images will be in that option list with the toggles your need. Others will come as they update their apps for the new version of the OS. In the meantime, only share photos using an app like WhatsApp that strips metadata.
“It is quite worrying that it’s taken Apple this long to offer the option of omitting this from public view,” Moore says. In the meantime and for complete privacy, “to share images with the faith that no personal data will be captured, screenshot the image before sending it—although this will reduce the quality of the image.”
Once iOS 18.2 is rereleased and this new feature works as intended, there will be no need to screenshot snaps or remove exif metadata image by image to share them safely. But the wait for that update now looks like being longer than expected.
As reported by Cult of Mac, while “a rumor from early November said the iOS 18.2 launch day would be the week of December 2, but that’s now impossible. There are steps that must take place before the operating system can be introduced, and not all of them have happened yet. The release will likely be in the second week of December… Apple doesn’t simply finish work on major operating system updates and immediately introduce them. The company wisely puts these through beta testing.”
That said, it’s imminent and while Apple Intelligence upgrades, including “including Genmoji, the Image Playground and more” will generate all the excitement, from a security and privacy perspective, this new photos update is long overdue.
In terms of Apple’s next steps, Cult of Mac predicts that “the Release Candidate will almost certainly go out on Monday, December 2. That makes Monday, December 9 the most likely launch date for iOS 18.2. And that fits with Apple’s regular habits — both iOS 18 and iOS 18.1 went out on Mondays.”
I fully agree with Moore—it’s surprising this tracking update hasn’t been done before, given the clear privacy implications around inadvertently sharing your location.
