Adding a profile picture to your Facebook account helps in people identifying you easily, it helps in making new friends and also increases the trust of your new friends knowing that the account is not fake and they are chatting with the person that they know.
However, fraudsters are always found copying or downloading peoples profile pictures and creating an account with the same info of that person and using it for their scam activities.
These fraudsters mostly create a fake profile of you just to scam your close friends, some fraudsters also use it to do bad online activities.
Majority of peoples who suffer in these Facebook profile thefts are females, most fraudsters create fake profiles of a female, copy her images and every info and then start using it to chat her mutual friends who are men.
There has been a lot of reports and my sister has even been a victim before, she was out of the blue receiving calls from her male friends and all that these guys were asking her was why she has started asking for money in their inboxes and telling them she will send nudes in return?
My sister was shocked, all she was saying was that is not her real account, some believed but some were not convinced that it was not her, one even said he has sent the money thinking my sister needed help.
After telling me about what has been happening to her, I managed to report that fraudster to Facebook and within some few days, Facebook deleted that fake account.
Maybe you have been a victim before, or maybe you have never encountered any situation like this before but let me tell you that these fraudsters are always doing that and it is not only females that they use their profile pictures, they also use males pictures for same activities.
So How Do You Protect Your Profile Picture From Theft?
Turning On Profile Picture Guard
By turning on this feature, users can not download your profile picture or take a screenshot. To turn on profile picture guard, tap to view your profile, select options and click on “Turn on profile guard”.
When this feature is enabled, you will see a badge indication your profile picture is protected. now your friends and family will still be able to see your profile picture but none of them will be able to download it.
This feature is currently not available for all countries but some selected countries, we hope it becomes available for everyone.
Changing Your Picture Privacy Settings
One thing that one needs to take more serious about when uploading a picture is about the privacy options of that picture when you are uploading a picture, Facebook gives you the option to choose who you want the picture to appear to, you can choose public, friends, or you can choose all your friends except some peoples.
So changing your profile picture privacy to only friends makes only your friends see your profile and not anyone can see to steal, although, with this feature your friends can still download, it is better than putting it in public for anybody including someone who is not even your friend to download and use it for scam activities, doing this also does not let your picture show to people that your profile has been suggested to them until you guys become friends, nobody aside your friends will be able to see your picture.
Conclusion
With the recent stealing of profile pictures on Facebook for scam activities, it is advised to protect your Facebook profile picture by turning on profile guard or making changes to the privacy of your photos by not setting it to public.
Let me hear in the comment section below if you have been a victim or if I missed something that you would love to share with me.
