This Website Is Cyberstalking Cats To Highlight Online Privacy
Cyberstalking website I know where your cat lives reveals your pets location to within 7.8 metres. That basically means it knows where you live too.
Scary? Heck yes! But that’s just the point. Site creator, Owen Mundy wants to highlight how readily information about you can be accessed through what you share online.
The project aims to explore “the sociable and humorous appreciation of domesticated felines, and the status quo of personal data usage by startups and international megacorps who are riding the wave of decreased privacy for all.”
Photos tagged with ‘cat’ uploaded to sites like Flickr, Instagram and Twitpic, are pinpointed by the website using the latitude and longitude coordinates embedded in their metadata. This information is publicly available.
Tagging cats as a data experiment seems innocent enough but the underlying message here is more sinister; it could just as easily be you or your child.
So, can you make it stop? Yes. Protecting yourself is simple, just increase your privacy settings and disable geo tagging on photo sharing websites…maybe help your mum with that too.
