Welcome to today's internet—you can buy anything, every website is tracking your every move, and anywhere you look you find videos and images of cats. Currently, there are 15 million images tagged with the word "cat" on public image hosting sites, and daily thousands more are uploaded from unlimited positions on the globe.
iknowwhereyourcatlives.com is a data experiment that locates a sample of 7 million public images of cats on a world map using the geocoordinates users unknowingly embedded in their metadata. The cats were accessed via publicly available APIs provided by popular photo sharing websites.
This project explores two uses of the internet: one that promotes sharing for the sociable and humorous appreciation of domesticated felines, and one in which the status quo of personal data usage is exploited by startups and international mega-corporations, who are riding the wave of decreased privacy for all.
To remove your image from this website simply increase the privacy settings on your own public photos.
We procured the images by running a query for public photos tagged with cats from the APIs provided by Flickr, Twitpic, Instagram, and others.
Increase the privacy settings of the photos of your furry feline friends. Within 30 days your photos will be gone from our site.
Every photo on this site was created and uploaded with the locational metadata intact by the original owners. Every cat we visualize could be accessed just as easily by searching popular photo sharing websites. So, no, we do not know where your cat lives, nor do we care.
To point out the ease of access to data and photos on the web, and to showcase how readily available social media users' information and snapshots are to the general public.