When talking about online privacy, people often focus on content — the things we share or post. But according to several recent studies, metadata may be just as important. What is metadata? It is information about that content, such as the time a message was sent or whom it went to. One study found that leaving the location tag on just eight Twitter posts a day could enable someone to figure out where you live. Others found that metadata from a smartphone could reveal a lot about its owner’s identity and personal information. U.S. laws currently focus more on protecting content from smartphones. However, studies like these show the importance of protecting metadata, too.
Learn more about these studies and what they mean for online privacy.
