Photo Privacy Lab
Limitations
A clean metadata scan is evidence about checked hidden fields, not a guarantee that a photo cannot identify a person, place, device, or event.
Visible content remains contextual
Faces, landmarks, signs, shadows, reflections, weather, room layouts, uniforms, and posting history can identify people and places even after metadata is removed.
Unknown and malformed structures
The parser fails closed on unsupported file signatures and unsafe offsets. A specialized forensic tool may recognize proprietary fields that this browser tool does not interpret.
Color and compression
Privacy Clean preserves JPEG compressed image data and ICC profiles. Full Flatten can change color handling, compression, dimensions, animation, and file size. Compare the final visual result before sharing.
High-risk use
Journalism, activism, legal evidence, medical material, and personal-safety situations require an appropriate threat model, organizational procedure, and often independent review.