VSCO: The Not-So-Safe Space

Aug 10, 2025

VSCO: The Not-So-Safe Space

BLUF: VSCO, a photo-sharing app beloved by Gen Z and emerging creatives, presents a quiet yet potent opportunity for OSINT practitioners. While marketed as a ‘safe space’ away from likes and comments, its metadata exposure tells another story - one with striking parallels to early Facebook and Twitter. This article explores how analysts can exploit this under-the-radar platform, what tools work best, and why centre-of-gravity analysis remains critical in understanding digital lives.

The New Quiet Corner of the Internet

VSCO (Visual Supply Company), originally a photo-editing app, has steadily evolved into a social platform with a devoted user base. Unlike Instagram, it lacks traditional social feedback mechanisms like likes, comments, or follower counts. That deliberate design choice has drawn in younger users (13–25) who are increasingly fatigued by performative online culture. This demographic shift has seen VSCO absorb migrants from platforms like Instagram, Twitter (now X), and Tumblr, particularly users looking for creative expression without the algorithmic noise.

Despite its minimalist aesthetic, VSCO is far from privacy-safe. Its design ironically promotes openness: public profiles, geotagged content, unfiltered uploads. And unlike Instagram, it doesn’t strip photo metadata consistently, meaning each uploaded image can retain crucial EXIF data including:

Timestamps
Geolocation
Device Type
Camera Settings

This turns VSCO into a quiet trove for open-source investigators.

Metadata: The Old Tricks Still Work

There’s a nostalgia among seasoned OSINT professionals for the golden age of metadata hunting, when Facebook statuses were geotagged by default and Twitter’s API was a firehose. Back then, it was trivial to correlate check-ins, tagged images, and tweet patterns to map daily routines.

VSCO offers a surprising return to form. Many uploads still retain embedded data, either because users export directly from DSLR or smartphone apps that preserve EXIF info.

Key observation: Unlike Instagram, VSCO doesn’t perform aggressive image sanitisation. This allows passive metadata capture with minimal effort. While VSCO profiles themselves don’t display likes or reshares, the public-facing nature of galleries still reveals:

Chronological uploads
Location signatures
Biographical trails through captions and tags
Cross-platform username reuse

Tools of the Trade

To extract metadata from VSCO images, the following tools are useful:

1. EXIF.tools

Free, web-based EXIF viewer. Upload or paste the image URL.

2. Metadata2Go

Extracts metadata from online-hosted images. Works directly with VSCO URLs.

3. OSINT Combine Image Analyzer

More advanced analysis, includes device fingerprinting.

4. Browser Extensions

Extensions like Exif Viewer Pro and Image Metadata Viewer allow analysts to right-click and scan without saving files.

Combine these with tools like PhotoDNA or Yandex Image Search for reverse image checking. Many VSCO users duplicate content across platforms, particularly Instagram and Pinterest, which supports pattern linkage.

Building a Pattern of Life (POL)

Once metadata is extracted, the real value comes from building a pattern of life:

Time analysis: Upload timestamps can reveal sleep and wake cycles, work routines, or school attendance.
Geo clustering: Repeated locations form behavioural anchors such as home, gym, or workplace.
Device consistency: Multiple uploads from the same phone or camera across time confirm user continuity.
Style and content themes: Moodboards, fashion aesthetics, or landscape choices all add to profiling.

Case Method: Centre of Gravity Analysis

By establishing the digital centre of gravity, analysts can pinpoint where influence, routine, and identity converge.

Steps:

Map geotagged posts over time
Weight by frequency and recency
Overlay with known infrastructure such as schools, venues, or places of employment
Cross-check with public registries, voter rolls, and LinkedIn

This triangulation often uncovers primary residences, secondary devices, or group affiliations, particularly valuable in protective intelligence or fraud investigations.

Conclusion

VSCO’s rise marks a return to quieter, more visually driven platforms. But as with Tumblr, Flickr, and early Instagram, the quieter the platform, the less guarded the users. That’s where OSINT thrives. Metadata remains the low-hanging fruit of digital intelligence, and when coupled with pattern of life and centre-of-gravity analysis, it’s still one of the most powerful techniques in the tradecraft.

For those working in protective intelligence, fraud investigation, or even brand protection, don’t sleep on VSCO. It’s not just for filters and sunsets. It’s a window into an unfiltered life.