Metadata in images...

jonbeeza

jonbeeza

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Just watching a tv program about someone claiming for the loss of an item, they submitted a photo of the item they were claiming for, to their insurance company. But they had cropped the original photo, to show the item in more close up detail. They sent the image to their insurance, but their insurance rejected the claim. As the insurance company said, the Metadata details suggested the photo had been taken after they had put the claim in, so the item that had been photographed, must still be in their possession.

I had to do something similar a little while ago, but this was for the council. I had to take some photos over a period of time, and then submit them. When I processed them all, I realised they would all have the same date within the metadata, and the Council might see this. The council might not believe that the events happened over a period of time, and think it only happened on one day.

I changed the date within, and made a note within the image explaining about the dates.

Images will say: Date image taken, or when image Created: Modified: Accessed:

Sometimes it is not always correct though.
 
If something is to be used as evidence, in any form of legal proceedings, you mustn't alter it in any way. If that's the case here, you really need to advise the council of what you've done and see what happens next. For future reference: any picture that might be required for legal use needs to be preserved as is.
 
Ed Sutton said:
:thinking:

All my files retain the original date of creation in the exif data.
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Yes as do all my images. But sometimes if you crop an image or something, it has another date of creation. It was just something to think about, or be aware of if submitting a photo, to anyone who may enquire when it was taken. :)
 
The solution is straightforward - Always enable all metadata/EXIF details and always use a non-destructive image editor. Most good software editors are non-destructive.

There is no disadvantage in following this practice but, as this thread describes, potential problems by not doing so.
 
Seems daft putting so much emphasis on the original photo dates in Exif seeing how you can set the date on your camera anyway......... I could take a photo of my car that would look like it was taken the year before it was built if I wanted........
 
jonbeeza said:
Yes as do all my images. But sometimes if you crop an image or something, it has another date of creation. It was just something to think about, or be aware of if submitting a photo, to anyone who may enquire when it was taken. :)
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Metadata is fragile & can easily be altered, deliberately or otherwise

AndrewFlannigan said:
If something is to be used as evidence, in any form of legal proceedings, you mustn't alter it in any way. If that's the case here, you really need to advise the council of what you've done and see what happens next. For future reference: any picture that might be required for legal use needs to be preserved as is.
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When I do work for local solicitors for some reason they like me to frame photos with time and date on the Frame They've a letter from me describing the raw conversion and how the frame is placed
 
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Krisstiffer said:
Seems daft putting so much emphasis on the original photo dates in Exif seeing how you can set the date on your camera anyway......... I could take a photo of my car that would look like it was taken the year before it was built if I wanted........
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Yes, but some people do check it anyway. People such as insurance companies may check the metadata, to see when the photo was taken. If someone says they took photos of their valuables to prove that they owned the items. Then should items get stolen, they may send the photo to their insurance.

There have been times when some people claimed their item of jewelry was lost or stolen, then they get in touch with insurance to make a claim. Their insurance then asks for proof they had the item, so they ask if they have a photo. Sometimes when people are pulling a scam and they have not lost the item, they take a photo then send it off claiming it to have been taken sometime in the past. But when their insurance company looks at the metadata, they can see the photo was take recently.

Yes I know it can be changed.

PS

Daft or not, insurance companies do put emphasis on it. I'm only saying what I saw on TV. ;)
 
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Many years ago I had to help with a fraud investigation … this was at the dawn of the digital age and the person committing the fraud didn’t know about dates embedded in exif data . I can’t recall the exact details now but the outcome was favourable and opened a few doors for me
 
boyfalldown said:
When I do work for local solicitors for some reason they like me to frames photos with time and date on the Fram. They've a letter from me describing the raw conversion and how the frame is placed
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I had to sign over the front of print with the date of the signature. The negative had to be provided with a statement of where, when, etc. I guess it varies from solicitor to solicitor. I stopped doing that work long before digital.
 
the black fox said:
Many years ago I had to help with a fraud investigation … this was at the dawn of the digital age and the person committing the fraud didn’t know about dates embedded in exif data . I can’t recall the exact details now but the outcome was favourable and opened a few doors for me
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I have often thought about the implications of having the wrong date, or time settings on the camera. I often take photos with my very old cameras for quick jpegs, I looked at the images trying to work out when I took them, and I was confused about the dates, as I knew the digital cameras where certainly not from the 1980s. For some reason, a couple of cameras defaulted to the 1980s, for some strange reason.
 
My Sony a9 when I got it was set to 2007 for some reason. I only noticed when I tried to find an image in Lightroom and it was right near the start of the catalogue. Considering the camera didn’t come out until 2017, I’ve no idea why the date was on 2007.
 
The metadata in my photos shows Date Shot, Date Created and Date Modified. The Date Shot does not change even if I crop and save at a later date, the other two do change of course.
 
Suvv said:
The metadata in my photos shows Date Shot, Date Created and Date Modified. The Date Shot does not change even if I crop and save at a later date, the other two do change of course.
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Maybe it depends on the software used, not too sure.
 
My oldest images on Flickr date to February 2000 ,but I’m pretty sure I was using digital earlier , my first camera had a built in 250 pixel hard drive with no view screen ,once you got to 1 or 2 mp cameras with screens and CF cards a couple of years later you were looking at £300 + a time to gain a extra 1 mp every few months , I took a rain check on the first canon DSLR as it meant changing all my lenses in and instead went for a 8mp Sony F828 the one with the swivelling body .. the rest is a constant flurry of chop and change over the last 20 years .could have bought a Ferrari by now
 
Just converted a raw file from a few months ago, and it gives Date Created: Todays Date) Modified: Today Date) Accessed: Todays date.)
But when I go to the details tab, it does give the original date that the image was taken. This was from a file from my Canon G7X. So maybe it was one of my older cameras that messes things up. :thinking:
 
My partner used to have an old and basic Konica Minolta Dimage camera that drained the batteries if you left them in so she only put the batteries in when she wanted to use the camera, and she rarely set the time and date when she did it. When uploading her photos to the computer, I always used a program that automatically put the photos in folders according to date taken (from Exif). It was at least a couple of years before I noticed just how many holiday pictures we had that were taken on 01/01/2000 :rolleyes:
 
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