Search for EXIF in the Web?

[pascalb]

Is there a possibility to search for specific exif data in the web? Google doesn't seem to index exif data. Is

there any other search engine which does? Is that technically even possible?

If yes, that would mean that I would possibly be able to look for my pictures in the web, if they have my name in

the exif data...

Or that I would have to strip some more of the exif data for my privacy saving.

Thank you for your answers and thoughts.

[steve_dunn2]

<p>It's certainly technically possible; the EXIF information is part of the image file, which the search engine

already retrieves (see Google's image search, which has cached thumbnails of images; in order to build these

thumbnails, it has to retrieve the image and chew on it, and in chewing on the image, it could also chew on the

EXIF data).</p>

 

<p>I don't know if any search engine does this. I've never seen one that offers to let me search EXIF data, nor

have I seen results on any which say they found something I mentioned in EXIF data for images. So to the best of

my knowledge, there aren't any search engines that include EXIF data, but this is not a definitive answer.</p>

 

<p>Whether anyone would actually bother doing this is an entirely different question. There are a lot of images

on the Web which don't have EXIF data, for various reasons, such as:</p>

 

<ul>

<li>The image never had EXIF data. For instance, I have a bunch of photos on my Web site which I scanned with a

flatbed scanner a decade or so ago; they have no EXIF data. I also have some photos I scanned with a film

scanner and edited in Photoshop Elements LE; these, too, have no EXIF data.

<li>The person who posted the image stripped some or all of the EXIF data, either implicitly (e.g. by using

Photoshop's Save For Web function) or explicitly (e.g. I use jhead to remove all EXIF data and other

bloat from the images I use as thumbnails)

<li>The image was uploaded to a site with a smart uploading system that strips EXIF data. Lots of sites chew on

the images you upload, if for no other reason than to take 10 megapixel images uploaded directly by users and

produce various display-sized versions. I know flickr understands EXIF, as it can display selected EXIF fields

on the Web page beside the photo; having done this, it probably makes little sense for it to leave the EXIF data

in the image file, but that's just a guess.

<li>The image is in a format that doesn't support EXIF in the first place.

</ul>

 

<p>So if you're going to build a search engine that can search through EXIF data on Web images, a lot of the

images it's going to find won't have EXIF data anyway. So how useful will that be? And since you'd probably

have to explain what "EXIF" means to 99% of the general Web-searching public, why would a search engine designer

want to bother putting in the effort to do this?</p>

[pascalb]

Steve: Thank you for your good answer. You've made some good points about uselessness and that 99% of the public doesn't know what EXIF is...although 1% would still be about 10 million people :-). But I'm happy that there is at least no well known search engine who does that.

I still think that too many images in the web have EXIF Data in them and that most people don't know that they put their name in the web and that this can be a disadvantage in many situation. For example if you are applying for a job and your future supervisor finds an image of you in the web...

But apparently, Big Brother is not watching me in this case...

[KenPapai]

"For example if you are applying for a job and your future supervisor finds an image of you in the web"

 

However, 99.7% of the JPGs on the Web that HAVE EXIF data still preserved will NOT have the actual/correct name of the subject of the photo, if any. No worries.

[dejan_zivanovic]

<p>Hi,<br>

you can try new search engine Exif Photo Search: http://photosearch.crazydroid.com<br>

Regards</p>

[craig_stadler]

<p>Everyone on this thread needs to see : http://www.exif-search.com</p>