Geofences - the new Flickr buzzword

Privacy settings just went local

31 August 2011 13:00 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Geofence. That’s the new buzzword you’ll have to remember, especially if you are a flickr user looking to control who sees your images online.

The idea behind Geofencing is that it allows you to create a virtual barrier around key locations, thereby filtering your contacts between those allowed to see photos within the location and those who aren't.

For example: you may only want specific friends and family to see photos taken within your home or at your child's school; just set a Geofence around the location and specify who can see it - any subsequent GPS-tagged pics uploaded to Flickr will then have the new privacy control in place.

Working like the site's Groups feature, that allows you to manage who sees what, this ability to do the same for photos taken with geographical data attached means up-to-date smartphones will be able to make the most of the new feature.

Why would you want such a service? According to Flickr it is so “you can easily make sure that only people you trust can see the location of photos taken inside your house or any other sensitive areas while still showing the world exactly where you had those amazing cheese covered duck fat fries."

Flickr users can set up their new geo preferences page to create geofences within Flickr.

Via: blog.flickr.net

Full tags

Flickr, GPS, Phones, Social networks, Online