How to Prove a Profile Pic is Fake

You know it’s fake. You just know it. If that guy really looked like the dude on his profile pic / avatar, the absolute last thing he’d be doing is wasting his time on a fourth rate dating site. But try as you might, you just can’t prove that profile pic is a photo of someone else… Well, actually, in most cases that’s not true. You can prove it, and it’s ridiculously easy. You just need the help of a free, but grossly under-publicised website...

TinEye.com allows you to upload any photo, and search for a visual match. It really is that simple. You upload that gloriously fake profile pic to TinEye (or simply enter the pic's URL if you have it), and TinEye cites all the other instances it can find of the same photo on the Web. You then look through the results to find out where the original came from, and who it really depicts. Whether you want to experience the fun of challenging the faker is up to you, but you have the information, you know the truth.

The results can be quite extensive. Attractive images can spread fast. However, the likelihood is that the original photo will be the one with the highest resolution. Simply look for the versions of the image with the highest res, and it shouldn’t take you long to trace the true origin.

In this instance, I stripped the colour out of a pic of a red hat. Regardless, TinEye was able to find the original image and provide me with a match.

NO RESULTS? 

Another option is to use Google's reverse image search. To do that, just go to Google Images, and click on the camera icon at the far right hand side of the search box. You can then upload your pic or enter its URL, just as you can on Tineye, and Google will aim to get you as much info as possible.

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Sometimes, neither TinEye nor Google will find any matches, but you shouldn’t take this as evidence that the profile pic is genuine. Firstly, there are several ways that a reverse image search utility can be misled into thinking that the same image is in fact different. Digital editing is the culprit. For example, I took a photo of a hat from Google Image search, and uploaded it to TinEye. No problem at all. TinEye found the match straight away. I tried editing the colours, or rendering the shot black and white – it made no difference, TinEye still found the match. However, when I mirror-imaged the photo with a single click process in my image editor, TinEye couldn’t find it – even if the colours were exactly the same as the original. Fairly small detail changes also prevented TinEye from locating the match, with or without the mirror imaging.

This time, however, I mirror-imaged the photo before uploading to TinEye. TinEye was unable to find the match. This is a potential 'escape route' for fakers, but you can play them at their own game (see main text).

If the faker is aware of reverse image searching and knows how to use an image editor, they could quite easily ensure their pic doesn’t show up in the search. Most profile pic fakers will, however, be using the photo as is. I’ve put a few suspected fakers’ avatars through TinEye this morning and every single one of them has shown up as an existing image belonging to someone else, so most of the time, I suspect exposing the truth will be an easy task.

Also Read 10 tips to identify fake profiles on Facebook

I’d also guess that if the faker is tech-aware and has edited the image to confuse TinEye, they’ll almost certainly only have mirrored it. Therefore, if you have the capability to mirror-image a photo (the free editor Photoscape allows you to mirror a photo in a single click), you can play the faker at their own game and mirror it back. Try one TinEye search with the standard pic as found, and if that doesn’t give you a match, mirror-image the pic and try again. Chances are, if it’s been taken from the Web, you’ll find it.

Of course, the photo may not have been taken from the Web in the first place, and in that event reverse image searching stands no chance of exposing the fake. Photos can be scanned from magazines, catalogues, books… If the faker scans from an older publication, the photo is less likely to be avaliable in electronic format. Sadly, in that case, you won’t prove the origin of the pic using TinEye. But if you believe the profile pic is fake, don’t change your mind. All the TinEye search does is provides proof if it’s there. You shouldn’t in any way consider TinEye’s inability to match a photo as proof that the pic genuinely belongs to and represents the person using it.

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The possibilities with TinEye and reverse image searching in general reach way beyond simply exposing online fakers who are using obscure pics of other people for their avatars. It’s also a good way to monitor who’s using/stealing your own photos, to put a name to a celebrity’s face, or even just to re-trace which site you donwloaded a specific image from. TinEye/Google won’t find everything. Some sites aren’t indexed. But for fake profile pics of attractive people, I think you stand a very good chance of getting the information you need.






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