This is only about using the pixels, not anything from the exif data. The only additional information was used in a later iteration of the model, taking advanta

This is only about using the pixels, not anything from the exif data. The only additional information was used in a later iteration of the model, taking advantage of knowing that photos in the same album were more likely to be taken in the same places. Also, there was a section in their paper about comparing PlaNet to human players at the GeoGuessr.com game, specifying that both had the exact same information available; there's no time information with GeoGuessr. I'm sure any serious organization actually putting together a product to locate images that have time—but not location—data would try to take advantage of the outdoor color temperature, lighting, global weather records, text recognition, and all that kind of stuff. This was a more focused research project.