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Many smartphones automatically save the exact GPS coordinates in every photo file. Anyone who looks at that file — not the picture you see, but its hidden data — can trace it back to the precise address where it was taken, accurate to within a few meters. Here's when it's a real risk, and when it isn't.

1. Photos of your home or garden. If you share the original file (not compressed by a social platform) taken indoors, anyone who downloads it can get your exact address from the GPS metadata, even if nothing recognizable is visible in the image.
2. Photos of kids or pets. These are among the most commonly shared as original files via email or WhatsApp groups, and often contain the GPS location of home or school.
3. Real-estate listings or online sales. Anyone uploading original photos to a marketplace or listings site can unknowingly reveal a property's address before ever posting the street number.
4. Vacation photos posted in real time. The GPS coordinates confirm your home is empty at that moment — a risk well known to law enforcement, who often advise waiting until you're back before sharing them.
5. When it's NOT a risk. If the photo has already passed through WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook or Telegram, metadata is almost always stripped automatically during compression — the issue is with original files.

The fastest way to know if one of your photos contains this data is to upload it to the tool at the top of this page: if there's a GPS location, we'll show it to you right away, decoded into a readable place.

With Midjourney, DALL-E and Gemini producing images that are almost indistinguishable from real photos, knowing what to look for has become as useful as checking the GPS data. Here are the most reliable signals, in order of importance.

1. Missing or inconsistent EXIF metadata. A photo taken with a real smartphone almost always has a camera Make and Model. AI-generated images usually don't — or only carry software tags like "Midjourney" or "DALL-E" instead of a device. You can check this by uploading the image to the tool above.
2. Hands, teeth and text. The classic weak points remain: the wrong number of fingers or unnatural hands, irregular teeth in smiles, and writing on signs or clothing that looks like letters but doesn't spell real words.
3. Unnaturally repeating details. Patterns on fabric, leaves, bricks or hair that repeat too regularly, or textures that "smear" toward the edges of the image.
4. Inconsistent reflections and shadows. Check whether shadow direction matches the light source, and whether objects reflected in mirrors or glass make sense given the scene.
5. Content credentials (C2PA). Some AI tools (including Google's image generator and Adobe Firefly) embed a verifiable signature in the file. Services like contentcredentials.org/verify can read it, when present.

No single clue is definitive proof — images shared on social media get recompressed and lose their original metadata. Combining several signals is far more reliable than relying on just one.