How your cat pictures can breach your privacy

Taylor Swift and her cat Meredith. Photo / Instagram

A professor has revealed how your cute cat pics posted to social media could in fact allow stalkers to pinpoint your location.

Owen Mundy, an art professor at Florida State university, has created a website called "I know where your cat lives" to raise awareness of how people unwittingly give up their privacy online.

Opening as an exhibition in London next month, 'Big Bang Data' reveals the effect of the huge amount of data created by peoples' regular online activity.

Because location data is often added to images via a phone's camera or an app, details of where a photo has been taken within eight metres can be uncovered.

Mundy's website, which was launched last year, now has 5.3 million cat pictures pulled from social media and loaded into a Google Atlas map.

The map can be zoomed in on to show how many cats are in the area while a 'random cat' button enables the user to view images of cats throughout the world.

He came up with the idea after realising snaps of his three-year-old daughter on Instagram also held the exact coordinates of his home.

"Geographic data is sensitive," he told the Independent. "A picture can only say so much. But if someone wants to do you harm or stalk you, or you live in a place where free speech is limited, anyone can track where you are.

"Privacy is an ongoing, changing thing, and I hope this becomes part of the conversation."

The director where the site will be exhibited said: "It's such an important subject matter and no one really understands it.

"Cat pictures are ubiquitous, funny and harmless - or so it would seem. But there's a sinister undercurrent and a serious point to be made."

- nzherald.co.nz