I created a link to share a photo in Google Photos. When I view this photo under my own account I see an "info" button (an "i" with a circle around it) that I can click to see things like when the photo was taken, the original resolution, info about the device which took the image, as well as a map showing where the photo was taken.
However, when I open the sharing link from an incognito tab, or from a different Google account, I don't see this info:
It isn't a matter of icons being hidden because there isn't enough room – I expanded the browser horizontally so there is a great excess of space and it isn't there, even if I refresh the page.
However, I sent the link to a friend and they indicated that they can see the "info" icon, and to prove it they correctly identified all the meta-data in the file as it is shown in Google Photos. I tried downloading the image from the link and while it contains the timestamp and GPS coordinates, it does not have other meta-data like the device it was taken with.
I tried using both Chrome and Firefox (even the same version on the same OS as they are using!) and don't see this info unless I am logged into the Google account the picture belongs to. This gives me a false sense of security because to me it appears that most of this metadata is not visible to others, and some of it is only visible if they take the time to download and use some tool to extract it.
Best Answer
The link to the photos takes you to a page where you can't see this information. Once you get to the page the link takes you, you have to actually click on the image itself. This will take you to another page (with the black background surrounding the image, instead of white) on which the "info" icon is visible.