Do you post pictures of yourself and your kids online?

Even in a virtual world, people like to put a face to a name. Apparently, if you’re on a micro-blogging site and use a photo as your Avatar (profile pic), then more people will talk to you and follow you.

Obviously, I’m anti-social so I use a cartoon as my avatar, but lots of other people don’t have my issues and happily stick photos of their smiling faces on a website. And I like that – I find it weirdly comforting to have a picture of someone in my mind when I’m sending them a message online.

But – how do I know it’s really them?

There’s a growing phenomenon online of fake or ghost profiles on social networks, where someone takes your photos and maybe even your name, and creates a new profile. One recent study suggested as many as 40% of profiles on one social network were probably fake.

This presents obvious risks for your information security (they might pose as you to get information from one of your friends or colleagues) and your personal reputation (they might insult or slander someone). Or the fake profile might encourage people to click on a link to a website that might infect their computer with a virus.

Using photos safely doesn’t just mean protecting them from theft, either – I know a client who works in marketing who recently posted a photo of a new gadget, that was sitting on her desk. Unfortunately, the gadget was sitting on top of some confidential paperwork relating to a client – who promptly fired the marketing consultant.

If you’d like to learn a little more about how to use images safely online, Safer Surfing has put together some tips on image safety, that you can read in the resource section. And don’t forget, if you have specific questions, just post them in the Wednesday Workshop thread, and we’ll pass them on to the experts at BitDefender.

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Comment by Pippa Wright on May 25, 2010 at 1:17pm: Ooh brilliant. I know someone who had a website for over a year back in the 90's that was taken very seriously but was in fact a spoof. The person being spoofed actually quite liked it, gave them more street cred apparently. Off to read the top tips.

Do you post pictures of yourself and your kids online?

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