Exposing fake profile photos with Google Images

Received a friend request from an unknown person? Maybe someone sincerely wants to meet you, but there’s also a chance that the person doesn’t have such good intentions. Scammers are also active on social media and on other sites, who pretend to be someone else. They create a profile under a false name and use photos that are not their own. These photos come from image banks or from other people who don’t know anything about this. One of the easiest steps in determining if it’s a fake profile is a Google Images reverse search. Search for the images via Google and see in which places the photo is used. Is the photo from a stock site? Then you know for sure that the profile is not reliable.

Find in Chrome where the image is all used like this:

• Open Chrome on the computer.
• Go to the profile picture you want to check.
• Right click on the image.
• click on Image search in Google.

If it’s a fake profile, the search may return results that also use the same photo. Perhaps there is even a result with a reference to an image bank. Check other social media sites with the same profile picture and see if they use the same name.

Find where the image is all used like this:

• Download the profile picture to the computer.
• Surf to Google.nl.
• Click on the top right Pictures.
• click on Search by image or the camera icon.
• click on Upload an image.
• click on Choose File, To leaf through or Browse.
• Select the saved profile picture.
• click on To open or To elect.

If it’s a fake profile, the search may return results that also use the same photo. Perhaps there is even a result with a reference to an image bank. Check other social media sites with the same profile picture and see if they use the same name.

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