You might already know not to geotag your photos or post your location in real time. But now, even the stuff in the background—like street signs, storefronts, and scenery—can give you away. With OpenAI’s newest models (o3 and o4-mini), ChatGPT can “reason” with images, connecting visual clues to pinpoint where a photo was taken. This means that even casual social media posts can unintentionally reveal your whereabouts.

Let this be a reminder that AI is changing the rules of online privacy. It’s no longer just tagged locations or check-ins giving you away—now it’s the restaurant menu in your photo, the cars outside the window, or any number of tiny background details you barely noticed. OpenAI claims it has added guardrails to prevent misuse, but the technology is clearly capable. If your posts are public, so is everything in the background.