Answer
Why remove metadata from photos?
Because the file carries more than the picture: where it was taken, what took it, and when. All of it travels with the photo wherever you send it.
Updated
Location is the obvious one. A geotagged photo names the spot it was taken to within a few metres, and people post pictures from home constantly without registering that the address is attached. The risk is not one photo; it is the pattern across many, where the place that recurs is where you live.
The camera identifier is the underrated one. Many bodies record a serial number in the metadata, which means every photo from that camera carries the same identifier. Two accounts that were never meant to be connected can be linked by it, and no amount of care about what is in the frame prevents that.
Timestamps are more revealing than they look. An exact capture time, often with a time-zone offset, establishes not just where you were but when — and across a set of photos, a routine.
Then there is content nobody expects to be in an image at all. AI generators write prompts, seeds and model names into the file. Editing software records the software version and sometimes the editing history. Scanned or exported documents can carry an author name from whatever produced them.
None of this argues for stripping every file reflexively. Copyright and creator fields are worth keeping when you are publishing work, and exposure data is worth keeping in your own library. The argument is for knowing what is in there before the file leaves your control — look first, then decide, and if the answer is that it should go, remove it without re-compressing the picture.
A worked example walks through what a single photo tells a stranger.
More on this: Metadata remover, Guides.
Terms used here: EXIF.