Red Jaguar Newsroom Privacy & Optimizer

Photos carry data you cannot see: GPS coordinates, the serial number of the phone or camera, the owner’s name, the date and time, the edit history, sometimes a small copy of the uncropped photo or the video of a “motion photo”. Anyone who downloads an image from your site can read it.

Built for newsrooms that protect their sources. Red Jaguar Newsroom Privacy & Optimizer removes that data from every image you upload, and helps you find and clean the images already in your media library. It is useful for any site that publishes photos.

Everything happens on your own server. No image is ever sent to an external service. There is no account, no API key, no tracking.

It is free, forever, updates included.

What it protects

• Hidden data in every new image. EXIF (with its thumbnail), XMP, IPTC, comments and anything appended after the picture are removed from JPEG, PNG and WebP files before WordPress makes its sizes. Removing them does not recompress the picture.

• The full-size original. For photos larger than 2560 pixels, iPhone (HEIC) photos and photos published as WebP, WordPress keeps the original file on the server next to the copy it publishes. The plugin deletes it once the published copy exists and is clean.

• File names that give you away. Names like PXL_20261028_091500.jpg or WhatsApp Image… reveal the device, the exact time or how the photo arrived. They are replaced, in the file, the title and the address of the attachment page, by the title of the article the photo is uploaded to ( march-in-the-main-square.jpg, better for image search), or by a neutral name for confidential stories.

• What WordPress copies into the database. Camera, date and other fields WordPress reads from the photo are emptied too.

• Photos rotated by the phone are straightened before their orientation tag is removed, so they never show sideways.

Your media library

A review reads every image already uploaded (the published copy, the original, each size and the backups WordPress keeps when an image is edited) and shows, in plain language, what it found: images that reveal where they were taken, serial numbers, owners’ names, hidden thumbnails, kept originals. One button cleans them; another, with an explicit confirmation, deletes the originals.

On large libraries, any of these tasks can run in the background with WordPress’s scheduled tasks, so you can close the screen and come back later. A “Privacy” column in the media library shows the state of each image.

Made for newsrooms

• Keep the photographer’s credit and copyright (IPTC) if you need them, and remove everything else.

• Titles, captions and alternative text written in a photo by an agency go into the WordPress fields, where editors can see and edit them, and are removed from the file.

• Photos signed with Content Credentials (C2PA) are cleaned by default, or can be left untouched.

• If an image cannot be cleaned (a damaged or unusual file), it is not uploaded, and the reason is shown.

• A short guide inside the plugin explains, in plain language, what photo metadata is, why it matters for newsrooms, what the plugin does not do, and good practices for reporters and editors.

A side benefit: lighter images

The plugin is about privacy first. Optimization is optional and runs on the same images.

• WebP or AVIF. New photos are published in a modern format, the image and all its sizes, about a third lighter than JPEG with the same look. PNG graphics and screenshots keep their format, so text stays sharp. Images already in the media library are not converted.

• The right size. Choose the largest size WordPress publishes and the compression quality.

• Better for SEO. Lighter images make pages load faster, especially on phones, and loading speed is part of how Google ranks pages (Core Web Vitals). The plugin does not write alternative text or titles for you; those still matter for search and accessibility.

• Alternative text. The overview counts the images without it and lists them, because it matters for people who use screen readers and for image search.

• No double work. If another optimization plugin already converts your images, the automatic mode steps aside.

• It works both when WordPress makes the image sizes on the server and when it makes them in the browser (WordPress 7.1).

Works with

• The block editor, the media library, the REST API, images added from a URL and WP-CLI.

• WordPress 7.1 browser-side image processing.

• News Sitemap & Schema, also by Red Jaguar.

• Plugins that move media to cloud storage: originals are then kept, because the plugin cannot check the copies stored elsewhere.

WP-CLI

• wp pmpo audit reviews every image and lists what it found. It changes nothing.

• wp pmpo clean removes the hidden data of every image that has it.

• wp pmpo delete-originals deletes the full-size originals. This cannot be undone.