In this challenge we were presented with the photograph below:
The question was “Where did the cat go on holiday?”
In this simple challenge all that was needed was to know that digital photographs contain meta-data in a format called EXIF (Exchangeable image file format). Metadata is “data about data” and in this case is additional information about the image. Exactly what information is included depends on the camera used, but things like exposure and whether the flash was fired are common examples. In cameras which contain a GPS receiver (such as a mobile phone) the location of the camera is also recorded. It is important to remember that the EXIF data might not be true, since there is plenty of software tools which allow you to change it later.
Most modern computer image viewing applications have an option to view the EXIF data. The results will look something like the example below:
As we can see, there is a latitude and longitude and entering these into google maps we discover that the cat went on holiday to the American town of “Haddock” and that turned out to be the answer.