Online Photo Sites: Are You Overexposed?
Page Media
An Online Privacy Fact Sheet from the ACLU
The more photos you move online, the more digital footprints you leave behind.
The information in your online photos is valuable. Moving your photos from photo albums and computer hard drives to online photo services can be convenient. But the photos you upload to these sites—and what you do with them—can say a lot about your interests, habits, beliefs, and concerns. And outdated privacy laws, written before the Internet even existed, mean that all this personal information isn't being properly protected from prying eyes. Don't pay for online photo services by giving up control of your personal information!
Your photos are worth a lot – to companies.
When you keep your photos in a photo album or computer at home, you know who can get access to it. When you store them on the Internet, it's harder to be sure. The service you use might look at your photos and other information to build a profile about you: who you are, what you do, and who your friends are. It might use tagging or facial recognition tools to extract even more information from your photos. It might use this profile for targeted advertising, or even share this information with others. And you might not even know it's happening.
Your photos are worth a lot – to the government.
All those online photos are a treasure trove for the government to find out details about your private life. And it is taking advantage of loopholes and grey areas in outdated privacy laws to try to get its hands on this information without a search warrant reviewed and approved by a judge.
Demand control of your photos.
You deserve to be able to use online photo services without having to worry that your photos could end up being used in ways you never intended or imagined. It's time to upgrade privacy laws to keep our personal information safe. It's time to stop paying for new technology with our privacy. It's time to Demand our dotRights!
DOWNLOAD This One-Pager Online Photo Services
LEARN MORE: Visit dotRights.org to learn more and to sign up for dotRights updates
TAKE ACTION: Demand that companies tell you who's getting their hands on your information and that lawmakers update privacy law.
