Your digital camera was lost or stolen, you’ve informed the police, posted on pickpocketmap.com, and now you’re wondering if in this day and age, if there was a unique number associated with your camera. The answer is: YES. Most digital cameras do have a unique serial number.

Whats good is that you don’t need to have the camera in your possession to determine the serial number! Cameras embed meta-information about into photographs they take, in something called EXIF format. Simply drag and drop a photo you took with your camera to StolenCameraFinder.com, and it will pull out and add your camera’s serial # to its database of lost/stolen cameras.

There have been accounts of private companies and law enforcement agencies tracking down stolen camera owners via serial numbers found in photographs online, so it does seem like a good idea to update your serial # at these websites.

If anyone has any experiences with this they’d like to share, please do feel free to share via the comments.