Online Threat Alerts (OTA) - Alerting you to scams and frauds.

Google Image Search Scam - Reverse Photo Lookup
Google Image Search Scam - Reverse Photo Lookup

Scammers steal photographs of real people to create realistic profiles. But, reverse image searches of profile pictures can help you spot the difference between a genuine and a fake profile. And, it can also be used to determine if an image has been used before in a scam.

How to Use Google’s Reverse Online Image Search

You can use Google’s reverse online image search of photos, and if the suspect profile photo appears under different names, you may have caught yourself a scammer.

On a computer or device:

  1. Open your web browser
  2. Go to www.google.com
  3. Click "Search by image" or go directly to www.google.com/imghp
    Search by image
  4. Click "Upload an image"
    Search by image - upload and paste URL
  5. Choose file or Browse
  6. Select a picture from your computer
  7. Click Open or Choose.

Visit Google Search Help for more advice on doing an online reverse image search.

Other online image search tools and apps you can use to do image reverse lookup:

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