Selfie-obsessed:The first known selfie is believed to have been taken by photographer Robert Cornelius in 1839, but the term itself didn't appear until 2002 when an Australian took a snap of himself at a party. Selfies were born.
But are they as harmless as they appear, and is there more to a selfie than first meets the eye? All digital images contain hidden metadata, some of it sensitive, which is available to anyone once your images are uploaded online.
Video: Secrets in my selfie
With the advent of the front-facing iPhone 4 and apps such as Instagram and Snapchat, the way people view themselves has changed forever.
Snap Decisions:
Selfie sunset Getty cropped
Getty Images
Selfies contain more than you might think.
When you take a photo on any device, it creates both an image file and another file known as Exif data (exchangeable image file format).
Some websites, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter strip this data from images before publishing them. However, on other sites, including Flickr and Google, you'll need to remove it yourself before you upload anything, or you risk sharing it with the rest of the world.
Remember, if you post your selfie on a website that doesn't remove the metadata, you may be giving away a lot more information than you intended to.
Video: Protecting your privacy
Watch this short video to discover how you can tweak your phone settings to stop your location data being recorded with your snaps.
What are we snapping?
he 2015 Ofcom Communications Report revealed some interesting insights into how we interact and share our images online. Almost 90% of 16-24 year olds now use smart phones to take their shots but older people still prefer to reach for their digital camera. More than a third of 16-24 year olds take more than 10 photos each week and 8% take more than 50.
