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.