How social media could be helping poachers track animals

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In an age of social media and tech-savvy travellers, most tourists don’t think twice about uploading their latest holiday snap to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest. However, if travellers are uploading pictures while on safari, they could be inadvertently making it easier for poachers to track down animals. African Travel Inc – a fourth-generation safari-planning travel agency that also works to ensure the protection of African communities and wildlife – is trying to raise awareness about this social media side effect by making it public that uploading images to social media platforms from your phone or iPad is doing more harm than travellers realise, because embedded within the post could be a geotag or a GPS location. On its website, African Travel has outlined how travellers can turn GPS off on their devices: Phone: Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. There you can turn off Location Services entirely. Or, if you prefer, you can turn off location services (GPS) for your phone’s camera. Android: Open the camera app, go to settings, and switch off the GPS tagging option. Twitter: Geo-tagging will only be turned on in the Twitter phone app if you have done so manually in the settings menu (under Privacy > Location Services). If you are posting from a computer, click on the gear icon in the right corner and then go to Settings to check your privacy settings. Facebook: Go to the gear icon in the upper right corner to check out your privacy settings. You can dictate who can view your information, posts, and updates. Visit the Timeline and Tagging section to make certain friends can’t post your location by checking you in at some locale or tagging you. Instagram: Photos are automatically public unless you change your settings. Go to Edit Profile and change your settings so “Photos are Private” is on. Once you’ve made that switch, only friends can view them. To turn off geo-tagging when posting, turn off the Add to Photo Map option. Pinterest: Click on your profile picture in the upper right hand corner and select Settings to see what the public can view, who can search for you, and what if any social networks you have associated with your account.

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