There are many reasons someone might right-click on your image and “Save image as…”
Porn, Sex and Dating Sites
- A woman might steal your blog headshot and use it for her dating site profile.
- A perv might take the picture of your child off your Facebook page and put it on a porn site.
- A person who runs a racy dating site might take your image and use it to advertise his service.
Scams
- Someone might use, without your knowledge, a photo of your house for a rental scam.
- Your motorcycle, jet ski, boat, puppy…you name it…could be used for scam for-classified sale ads.
- Your avatar may be used for a phony Facebook account to then be posted in the comments section of news articles pitching some get-rich-quick scheme.
Fantasy Lives
- Your image could be used by a lonely person to create a fictitious Facebook account.
- A person with a real Facebook account may be so desperate for friends that they use your photo to create a fake account to then add as a friend.
- Someone you know may steal your photo (such as an ex-lover) and create a social media account in your name, then post things on it that make you look really bad.
How can you protect your digital life?
- For your social media accounts, make sure your privacy settings are on their highest so that the whole world can’t see your life.
- Watermark your images so that they have less appeal to image thieves, but keep in mind that they’ll have less appeal to you too.
- It’s one thing when an image of your house was stolen for a rental scam, but it’s a whole new animal if an image of your naked body or you engaged in a sex act was stolen. So don’t put racy images online. Never.
- Explain to your kids about the risks of stolen images.
- Make sure their social media privacy settings are high.
- It’s possible your smartphone automatically stores pictures you take online. Turn off this feature.
Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to TheBestCompanys.com discussing identity theft prevention.
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