P: Private Location flag no longer honored on export

[angrymongoose]

In past versions of Lightroom Classic, if a map location was marked as "Private", all location data (including both GPS data and hand-entered IPTC location data) would be stripped from the photographs on export. As of Lightroom Classic 11.4, it appears that the "Private" switch on locations is no longer being honored: exported photographs that have been marked as being at a private location are exported with all location data included.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. Create a location in the Map module, checking the box to mark the location as private.

2. Select a photograph and apply the location to it.

3. Export the photograph. Make sure that the checkbox 'Remove Location Info' is unchecked.

4. Inspect the metadata on the exported photograph (on MacOS, use the Finder's Get Info)

EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

Latitude, Longitude and other location-related metadata should not be included.

ACTUAL BEHAVIOR

Latitude, Longitude and other location-related metadata are present in the exported photograph.

NOTES

Reproduced on Lightroom 11.4.1 and 11.4 on OS X 12.4. Not tested on other versions/platforms, but on earlier versions of Lightroom the location data was correctly stripped for photographs marked as being at private locations, so this is apparently a regression.

This bug has real-world security implications for some users, so it should be addressed promptly.

[John R Ellis]

I confirmed this bug in my LR 11.4.1 / Mac OS 12.4 and that it doesn't occur in LR 10.4.  

A possibly related bug:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/person-info-not-removed-during-export-s...

[John R Ellis]

As a workaround while waiting for this to be fixed, you could use the Metadata Wrangler plugin to remove the location fields.

[angrymongoose]

Wow, Metadata Wrangler is impressive. Thanks for pointing that out I always wanted a way to strip just the precise GPS location from 'private' images, while still exporting the IPTC location data.

I've been using Jeffrey Friedl's Flickr plugin for a while. I guess this is another one to add to the toolkit.

Thanks for the heads-up about this, and also for testing and confirming my bug report.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Adding bug number and updating status

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Greetings, 

Updates for Adobe Photography products began rolling out Tuesday night, August 16th,  The updates contain a fix for this issue. 

If you do not see the update in your Creative Cloud Application, you can refresh it by hitting [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ].

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your update to be available in your Creative Cloud app.

Thank you for your patience.