Fwiw, this title would apply to any point in time in human history. We just have the internet now to exchange information about it with higher bandwidth and lower latency than ever. Just think about the cost of exchanging information with random individuals around the world even 30 years ago.
100 years ago you just said "Yeah, I'm sure all that's happening. So what? The world is big, I just stick to my little corner." Today we have an interconnected population of people who now recognize these things not only as problems, but as things that could/should be resolved.
I find it to be a bit sketchy in general, because it means the OS is actually parsing and editing the actual bytes of the file contextually when an app tries to access it. Probably making a shadow copy somewhere without the GPS exif data.
But yeah, I agree, at a minimum the OS should pop up a notification that "By default, GPS data will be stripped from the file due to inadequate location permissions" until the user either changes their preference or says "that's fine, don't remind me for this app". Having it happen silently just isn't good.