Posting pictures on social media can be a fun way to create content and share updates with family, friends, and followers. It’s easy to get carried away sharing these pictures, but you must remember that they are a window into your private life.

While many people out there are good, some diabolical individuals can use the information in your pictures to put you and your loved ones in compromising or dangerous situations.

Here, we’ve provided a list of things you should look out for before you share a picture with strangers.

1. Location Tags

A hand pointing at a digital map on the wall

Location tags (or geotagging) can be a handy way to share your location with people without putting it in your post, and it’s also a good way to improve your post’s visibility. However, they could also be potentially dangerous information. This is especially true when you’re in a private location like your home or workplace.

Location tags can also be attached to other social media content, like posts on Twitter. Learn how to get rid of them by looking at our guide on removing location tags from your tweets.

On another note, sharing downloadable pictures with strangers can be dangerous when they may contain metadata. Metadata in pictures could have your GPS location in them. We strongly recommend you view and edit metadata in a photo before you share downloadable pictures with strangers.

2. Travel Plans

Orange and green label airplane ticket

Travel plans contain very specific information on your location. If, for instance, you’re going to be traveling in a plane, your plane ticket code can reveal when your plane is taking off, where you’re going to, and when you will get there. And they can all be done with various flight-tracking apps.

Not only can travel plans tell people where you will be, but they can also tell them where you won’t be. A burglar can see this as the best opportunity to raid your home since they know there won’t be anyone to stop them.

3. Work or Home Addresses

Cluster of a diary, parcel, and postage stamps

An innocent picture of you or a loved one standing in front of your house has the potential not to be a problem if your house number and street name appear in the picture. It’s not difficult for people to piece clues together and find where you live (especially if they are in the area already).

But it doesn’t just end at pictures of your home; when you take pictures of items like shopping bags or delivery packages, be careful to look through them to see if your address isn’t tagged on labels.

Lastly, avoid taking pictures of mail, IDs, and other sensitive documents. Whenever you take a picture with a cluster of documents, scan them thoroughly to see if there’s any address on them.

4. Children’s School Information

Child in oversized glasses sitting in class with a bookshelf behind him

Generally, you should avoid posting children at all on social media. But if you feel you have to, it’s better to leave out anything indicating where the children attend school.

Avoid sharing pictures of them leaving or going to school, avoid sharing outdoor school events, avoid sharing pictures containing schoolbooks with the school’s name on them, and avoid sharing pictures of them with their school uniform on.

5. Contact Information

Your name, email address, and phone number can be used for impersonation. But apart from impersonation, you could be a target of spam, scams, and unsolicited communication if your email and phone number get out.

It’s not as difficult as you might think to share contact information, especially because it can appear in phone screenshots of your settings or internet accounts. Your phone number may show up in a picture of your pet with their collar ID tag.

Censor or mask any of these in your pictures before sharing them with the public. If you use an iPhone, you can censor photos with Markup.

6. Daily Schedules

A journal planner with writing materials around it

Like travel plans, your day-to-day itinerary can threaten your security and privacy if shared. It can tell people where you are, and it could tell thieves and burglars where you’re not.

Also, if a criminal-minded person was looking for you for whatever reason, they could ambush you between locations if they knew your schedule.

After taking a screenshot, photo, or anything along those lines, try to ensure that your itinerary doesn’t come up as one of the things contained in the image unless you’re absolutely sure that’s what you want.

7. Login Information

One of the most sensitive things you could possibly share online is your password and username. It doesn’t matter what service the username or password is for; it can give people insight into how you structure your passwords, and they could try it to access more important accounts.

If you’re the type that writes your passwords and usernames in your journal, be careful when you’re taking pictures if your journal is open around you.

Also, you should be mindful when taking screenshots because they could also contain your username or password displayed on your predictive keyboard.

8. Your IP Address

While it’s extremely unlikely that your IP address will show in a photo you take, there’s a chance it could appear in the background on your computer’s screen.

When you should really be worried about revealing your IP address is when you share screenshots. Your browser or computer’s settings can be displaying your IP address somewhere. Look out for that before you ever share any images.

Your IP address can be used to find out information about you. While it's not as sensitive as information like your home address, it's information you don't want to share with strangers.

9. Financial Information

Close-up photo of two brown Mastercard cards

Lastly, but as important as anything else on this list, is any kind of financial information. Make sure your photos don’t contain images of your credit or debit cards, bank account numbers, or other financial information.

You might also want to exercise some extra caution and ensure that things that might indicate how much money you have aren’t showing up in your photos. This will include information such as your bank account statement, invoices, and receipts.

Double-Check Your Images Before You Upload Them

Before you share anything on social media, check it—then recheck it—before you upload it. It’s easy to think a picture is harmless until you give it a closer look.

Unfortunately, the internet is not as safe as we’d like it to be, and a little pro-activeness could protect you and your loved ones. If you’re not sure your picture is safe, come back here and look at this list before you upload it.