The Integrity of Exif Metadata : A review of Social Media Platform interaction.

Seyed Saad Mazri Asl

Bachelor's thesis

Abstract:

The discovered results of the experiments carried out in this research provide an understanding of how social media platforms handle metadata and the lack of user awareness when sharing sensitive data. Whether the user altered the media before uploading or the SMP stripping away the metadata, the results obtained after retrieving the images prove that the integrity of the metadata is not intact. This result makes the integrity of the metadata unreliable in legal proceedings. Furthermore, the research revealed the time consumption and extend a user must take to keep their privacy. In comparison between the social media platforms, the SMP that stood out in the case of how they handle metadata was Instagram. Instagram stripped away the metadata and did not allow permission to right click and save image, nor did it have an option to download the media. This practice should be a benchmark for other SMP to adopt. The research findings highlight the need for a standard protocol to be adopted by all social media platforms when handling metadata, the protocol should strip away the metadata to avoid being obtained but store the original media with the Exif metadata for legal proceedings.

Keywords

Cyber Security, Metadata, Social media platforms

Jazyk práce: English

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 15. 3. 2022

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Vedúci: Ing. Martin Havránek, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Economics and Management

Bachelor programme / odbor:
Systems Engineering and Informatics / Informatics