Hey!
We don鈥檛 strip metadata. Since your data and metadata are both stored end-to-end encrypted, we haven鈥檛 had many requests for this. But I can imagine use cases for not wanting to retain this information, so have added this to our roadmap: Option to strip EXIF metadata before upload 路 Issue #1402 路 ente-io/photos-app 路 GitHub
Deleting items from the local gallery on iPhones requires explicit user consent (else malicious apps would have a field day). What you could do is disable iCloud backups from device settings (Settings > [Your name] > iCloud > Photos), and then clear items that have been backed up to Ente by heading to Backup Settings > Free up space 