What standards exist for storing time and location in digital photos, and can they be authenticated?

Question

I’m building a project that gathers photos in near real time from many contributors over a large area. The images may be submitted semi-anonymously, but we need at least the capture time and ideally the location recorded with each image.

I’d like to know:
- what standard metadata formats are used to store timestamp and GPS/location data in image files
- whether most cameras commonly write this information
- which standard is most widely used
- whether any of these systems can actually authenticate that the reported time and place are genuine, rather than just store the data

We may process many images automatically, so standards that are commonly supported by cameras and software are especially relevant.

user4880 · Accepted Answer

For embedding standard metadata in images, EXIF is considered the primary standard, which provides well understood fields for time and location information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchangeable_image_file_format

In addition, EXIF has a tag known as 'maker data' that allows 3rd parties to embed custom tags. This is typically where a Canon or Nikon embeds camera specific metadata, and they do not usually share the contents of their custom metadata. However, you could certainly use this area for your own needs as well, though it isn't 'standard'.

Finally, IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) publishes their own standard, which has more extensive metadata. This is often supported by editing and photo management software, rather than cameras.

https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/

IPTC provides more fields related to location, scene subject, etc that might prove useful to you as well.

What standards exist for storing time and location in digital photos, and can they be authenticated?

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