Almost all of us are active on social media nowadays. Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Linkedin etc, there are so many social media sites. Most of you are not aware of a big danger about using these. One of the dangers is misuse of your pictures posted on social media by you. Yes, it can be very dangerous for you if you post your pictures on social media. Here's why......
- Criminals can use your pictures to gain access to sites and locations protected by facial recognition systems. Big companies use data such as pictures on social media to do research for their software development or other systems. They do this WITHOUT taking your consent for using your pictures.
- There have been cases where pictures confidentially shared on social media for private use, have been stolen and made public to humiliate or blackmail the person or misused for fraud and identity theft.
- Your pictures from social media can be used to unlock smartphones. This will mean disaster for you as you not only will lose your smartphone but also lot of personal information will get accessible to someone else.
- When you post your picture on social media, there is a metadata automatically created of the picture. The meta data is the information about the picture i.e GPS coordinates of the place of picture, date and time. Hackers can easily uncover this metadata and come to know where exactly you are. This information can be used to plan out certain things against you.
- Photos of children on social media have been used for cyber bullying, stalking and kidnapping. It is very easy to know from the school uniform about the school details of your kid. Kidnappers can use this information to their advantage.
- Your pictures can be used for identity theft. Information about your lifestyle, habits are unintentionally given out. If you look rich and wealthy, you might probably come on the radar of a criminal looking for right targets.
- You simply CANNOT trust ANY social media tool, no matter how reputed they are. When you post your pictures on social medial believing that the media is renowned and safe, then you are mistaken. Any social media can be hacked. Mistakes too can occur and the social media tool can reveal your pictures publicly due to some technical error or oversight.
- An employee was fired from his job as he had posted his picture on social media partying with his friends while he had reported sick and taken leave from office. His employer saw this picture and immediately fired him.
- Editing software can easily put your face picture on someone else's body. This can be used to make embarrassing pictures or videos of yours which can cause severe distress and humiliation.
- When you post your family pictures, you are revealing a lot of information about your family details which can be used by fraudsters to take advantage of you. For example, a criminal comes to know through your picture on social media that you are mother of a new born baby. Probably you will be at home attending to your baby while your husband is at office and he can exploit your vulnerability to rob your house.
- A lady posted her picture with her house in background. A criminal studied the house from the pic on how to gain access inside. He also collected lot of information about the lady through the picture. He successfully used this information to rob the house.
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