Cell Phone Identification

[rpcrowe]

If a video shot with a cell phone is posted on social media - is it possible to identify the cell phone used to shoot the video?

[revi]

That depends on what you mean by "identification" and whether the social media preserve metada.
If metadata is preserved, cell phone model should be possible (potentially with a lot of other information, like geolocalisation),
precise identification of a particular phone, no idea.

[Manfred M]

I believe that the short answer is that this metadata is recorded by the phone when shooting video and includes device specific information including location information, much like is done for still images.

So far as I understand it the longer answer is that video posted online is reprocessed by the streaming service and personally identifiable data (including location, device ID) is stripped out during this process. Same applies for still images as well.

These services don't do this to be nice, but rather their legal departments want to avoid getting sued should this information gets out there. No one wants to be accused of having their online services gave away the location of a person and allowed them to become the victim of a crime. I suspect this is true for any of the major suppliers that we have access to.

On the other hand, smaller, offshore services in places with weaker legal protections may not have to deal with this type of issue.

[rpcrowe]

My question is in regard to the videos posted by Hamas, on social media, of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by that organization. I was wondering if tracing the phones used to shoot the videos could help identify the persons who took the videos and perhaps eventually lead to locating and possible rescue and/or recovery of the hostages.

A secondary result of identifying the phones (if that is at all possible) could be the possible retribution towards the kidnappers.

I am pretty sure that Israeli intelligence is using (or will be using) facial identification programs to help identify the kidnappers. But this would only help when and if the kidnappers were in Israeli custody or killed by the Israelis.

[revi]

My question is in regard to the videos posted by Hamas, on social media, of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by that organization. I was wondering if tracing the phones used to shoot the videos could help identify the persons who took the videos and perhaps eventually lead to locating and possible rescue and/or recovery of the hostages.

A secondary result of identifying the phones (if that is at all possible) could be the possible retribution towards the kidnappers.

I am pretty sure that Israeli intelligence is using (or will be using) facial identification programs to help identify the kidnappers. But this would only help when and if the kidnappers were in Israeli custody or killed by the Israelis.

I'd be very surprised if the various intelligence operations do not check any available metadata...