privacy

All posts tagged privacy

Finding your images in unexpected places, part II

Posted by Arno on August 3, 2012
Posted in: copyright infringement, photography, Photoshop, portrait. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 2 comments

So a couple of days ago I wrote about someone using my picture as their profile picture on Facebook. I dropped the person a few messages, to no avail (of course).
But that wasn’t the end of it. I wasn’t done with my reverse search, and lo and behold, I ran into another profile on Facebook that was using another picture of me as their profile picture.
I put a status update about it on Facebook, after which a whole number of my dear friends reported the particular person and the profile. As did I myself (since I didn’t get any reply to my messages from this guy either).

Facebook profile

The Facebook profile which is using my picture

I thought that Facebook had already removed the other account (the one I wrote about in the previous blog post) and I praised Facebook for its effectiveness. However, after today’s mail from Facebook I started doubting if it was really Facebook who removed the other profile, or if it was the person himself who deleted it or took it offline after my message(s).

Here’s the mail I got from Facebook. It’s called “Follow-up about your recent report to Facebook”:

Hi,

Recently you reported a profile on Facebook. We did not take action on the profile you reported because it did not violate Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

If, after reviewing the Facebook Community Standards (https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards), you think we’ve made a mistake, you can request that we review the profile again here: http://www.facebook.com/report/appeal.php?report_andthensome….

Please note: If the profile does not violate our policies, your ability to report may be limited in the future.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Give us feedback to let us know how we are doing:
http://www.facebook.com/survey/take.php?survey_id=130787177018977&cid=139834556156963

I sent a few reports yesterday, not only about these two profiles, but also about something else (which I’ll tell a bit further on) so I wasn’t quite sure which report this was. So I clicked the appeal link and came to this:

Facebook's appeal page for denied reports

Facebook’s appeal page for denied reports

So there you go. They wouldn’t take any action on my report (or any of the reports my friends did?), because it didn’t violate Facebook’s Statements of Rights and Responsibilities.
I mean… WTF???
Of course it doesn’t violate FACEBOOK’s Rights and Responsibilities. It’s not f***king Mark Zuckerberg in the picture. It’s ME in the picture, so it violates MY rights!
And since when is it allowed to
1) use someone’s picture without that person’s consent?
2) use a picture of which you don’t own the copyright without the consent of the rightful copyright owner?
So how does this not violate Rights and Responsibilities?

So I will appeal with exactly the text above and see what Facebook says to that. They may limit my ability to report if they still think it’s no violation.

And then the other thing…
When I did the RMSP photography course in the US in 2008, we had a great class (RMSP2008 forever!!! 🙂 ). We had so much fun together!
One of the courses we did was studio lighting and we stood model for each other when we did portraits.
One of the guys modeling for me at that time is probably one of the most hearty, friendliest, radiant and goodlooking guys I’ve ever met and he’s got a smile like no other. I swear, if I hadn’t been heterosexual, I would’ve jumped him *LOL*
Anyway… The portraits I took of him came out really nicely, and he was nice enough to sign a model release for me, so I could use the images. One of the images is in my portfolio:

Portrait of a handsome young man

The portrait

When I found another one of my pictures used as a profile picture on Facebook, I decided to check all the people I shot images from and which are in my portfolio. And guess what (can’t really blame them, in the end, but still), this image came up on two different Facebook profiles and on one corresponding Twitter page.

The Facebook profile of Jacob Mems with the portrait I shot as a profile picture

The Facebook profile of Jacob with the portrait I shot as a profile picture

The Facebook profile of Matt with the portrait I shot as a profile picture

The Facebook profile of Matt with the portrait I shot as a profile picture

Coincidence wants that my friend is also called Matt, but unless he has changed his last name and went from the most peaceful guy in the world to a streetfighter, these two Matts are not the same (if they are, then I sincerely apologize). And I know Jacob isn’t Matt, because according to Jacob’s profile, he’s studied in the UK and Matt hasn’t.
I sent both of these guys a message asking them to take down the profile picture, because it’s not them and they have no right to use the image without my consent and I left a tweet with the latter. I haven’t received any reaction, any sign of life from either.
I filed a report on both profiles with Facebook, but the problem with that is, that Matt isn’t on Facebook to my knowledge, and the only way to report an impersonation is if you can refer to the person on Facebook. So I had to go through the process of reporting abuse of intellectual property. That came up empty-handed sofar, but if the idiots at Facebook won’t even acknowledge a report by me and by a bunch of my friends of an impersonation of me than I don’t think they will go for the intellectual property thing.

So what I want to do now is make this go viral. And prove once again that Facebook only SAYS that they have privacy as priority number one, but really they don’t give a shit.

Read this, share this and put it out there.

A guy’s world of paranoia, Day 114

Posted by Arno on January 9, 2011
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 comments

So I got this new phone. Another smart-phone. It actually looks quite smart. And I can even call with it! 😀
And it’s got all these fancy widgets that you can install. First I thought I’d install the Facebook app, so I checked it out, downloaded it, and got to reading to what I have to agree to when installing the app. I knew already that Zuckerberg was a sneaky little weasel, so I read carefully and quickly canceled. It read this:

This application has access to the following:
System tools: Prevent phone from sleeping, write sync settings
Network communications: Full Internet access
Your personal information: Read contact data, write contact data
Your accounts: Manage the accounts list, act as an account authenticator
Your location: fine (GPS) location

So… I don’t think so. I mean… Read contact data? Write contact data? Manage the accounts list and act as an account authenticator? WTF? No way!

There’s been already a whole lot of discussion going on about applications on today’s smart-phones that access private information, with or without the phone’s owner knowing about it, and I’m sure there’s something going on in my phone, too, with pre-installed things, that I don’t know of. But when installing third-party applications, you just have to be really careful.

So I checked on, found a couple of nice widgets that could give interesting info. AccuWeather Clock was one. So again, I downloaded it and got to reading what I have to agree to when installing. Did you think that Zuckerberg was a sneaky little weasel? From him I sort of get it still, since he has this whole social networking thing going on. But from the AccuWeather Clock? That app has no business sticking its nose in my private information! And it wants to access even more information than the Facebook app. WTF????

Accuweather Clock smart-phone application

D700, ISO200, 1 sec @ f/6.7, Tamron 90mm macro

The above is a real-time photograph of the AccuWeather Clock application, just before  installation. I don’t know who of you has actually installed this, but have you read what you’ve allowed this thing to access?
Allow this application to directly call phone numbers (services that cost you money).
Allow this application to act as an account authenticator, contacts data in Google accounts, Google mail, manage the accounts list, use the authentication credentials of an account.
Allow this application to modify or delete SD card contents.
Allow this application to modify global system settings, prevent phone from sleeping, retrieve running applications, write subscribed feeds, write sync settings.

Seriously, why the hell would you put the authentication credentials there in the first place, if you allow these kind of applications to freely use them? And why would this application need to have access your Google account, calendar and be able to add stuff to your calendar and to send people in your contact list mails? That’s just SO screwed up.
Have you read the terms and conditions on everything you’ve agreed to? Do you realize what implications these things have on your privacy?
I suggest you start checking what you’ve got installed on your phone and what it’s accessing. You might be surprised. Not pleasantly…