January 28, 2019
revised February 21, 2019
In a world featuring social media and instant celebrity, millions choose to post pictures of themselves or their children online. Actors, fashion models and public figures likely have a legitimate need to market themselves through the use of headshots and selfies. Facebook, by appellation I suppose, is meant for faces; while networkers on LinkedIn often post their smiling mugs to facilitate interconnections. Arguably, dating web sites would be of little use without users posting pictures of themselves thereto, and YouTube abounds with videos of everyone everywhere.
However, the dark side of the Internet teaches us that keeping all those images private is impossible. Images floating around Cyberspace pose privacy, security, and exploitation risks to the unwitting persons depicted. Anyone interested in preserving their privacy and anonymity should think carefully before posting a picture online.
A number of crimes and fraudulent schemes have developed from the improper uses of personal images.
Identity Theft & Fraudulent Schemes:
Criminals often use stolen images to create fake identifications in furtherance of identity and credit thefts.
Stalking:
Stalkers use images to help them locate and identify their victims. They might also use the metadata embedded with the image to gain further information about the victim.
Harassment:
In harassment cases, suspects post images of their victims accompanied by demeaning remarks in memes and in public forums.
Altered "Photoshopped" Images and Deepfakes:
Creators of pornography often cut, copy, and paste the faces and heads of unwitting victims on to the images of nudes (US Immigration, 2019).
Compromised Investigations:
Persons involved in law enforcement, public safety, and particularly those in undercover work, might have their identities compromised, thus placing their safety in jeopardy of "outing" and retaliation from criminal offenders.
Facial Recognition Misuse:
Facial recognition programs have legitimate uses in identifying criminals and terrorists based on collections of images retrieved from online databases. In the future, such programs will predictably be misused by criminal organizations for nefarious purposes against law-abiding citizens.
"Soft-Core" Pedophilia:
The comments sections under some of the YouTube videos depicting innocuous images of minors also may have sexually suggestive references to the exploitation of minors. Recognizing the possible link to pedophiles in these postings, some advertisers, including Nestle and Disney have pulled their advertisements from some YouTube videos. Meanwhile, YouTube is working towards deleting or blocking comments that suggest sex crimes (Bergen et al. 2019).
Think Before You Post
Once an image is posted somewhere online, there is a chance that it can be copied, recopied, and widely distributed. The image is probably irretrievable. The only way to prevent misuse of an image is to never post it online in the first place.
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Bergen, M., DeVyck, G., and Palmeri, C. (February 20, 2019). Nestle, Disney Pull YouTube Ads, Joining Furor Over Child Videos. Bloomberg News Technology. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-20/disney-pulls-youtube-ads-amid-concerns-over-child-video-voyeurs
US. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (February 1, 2019). Former Oklahoma teacher admits creating sexually violent images of children using photographs downloaded from Facebook. ICE Newsroom. Child Exploitation. Retrieved from https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/former-oklahoma-teacher-admits-creating-sexually-violent-images-children-using
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