The student thought she was participating in a photo session, but in the end she gave her face to Internet users for free

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

This girl's face seems very familiar. Perhaps you have met him on the Internet, because her photographs flash everywhere: on one of the banners she sells carpets in New York, on the other - advertises cosmetics. Her profile is on a dating site, and she is also an immigrant in Uruguay. When a student from South Africa Shubnum Khan took part in a free photo session, it never occurred to her that she was consenting to the free use of her own face on the Internet. Shubnum decided to tell the world her instructive story.

"Lookalike Girl" from Canada

This happened a few years ago, when freelance website writer and artist from Durban, South Africa, Shubnum Khan was still a student. Once she and several other fellow students were offered to take part in a free photo session. The photographer explained that he needed a hundred people for the 100 Faces Shoot project and promised all the models wonderful professional photos in return. Shubnum went to the shooting with pleasure. Everything went very quickly and easily, and when, before entering the studio, a smiling man gave her to sign something like a contract, she did not attach any importance to it.

- As it turned out later, it was written in very small print on this piece of paper that we all agree to use our photos on the Internet as stock photos. - A young woman explains. “But then, of course, we didn't pay attention to it.

For two years the unsuspecting Shubnum lived her usual life, until one day a friend from Canada posted a picture on her Facebook page with the postscript: "Hey, isn't that you?" From a photograph of a Canadian newspaper advertising immigration, her face smiled. Other acquaintances also recognized Shubnum as an “immigrant”.

When the girl “punched” this photo in Internet search engines, she was shocked. Her face was found on websites and advertising banners around the world. It smiled even from a McDonald's poster in China. And she found at least 50 such images.

And then one of the former students remembered: “Listen, you and I took part in an art project of one photographer in 2010!”.

Shubnum contacted the person who photographed her, and he confirmed: “Yes, I sold your photos to stock sites, because you yourself signed a voluntary consent to their free, free use. It was necessary to read more carefully what was written in small letters!"

Her face lives its own life and is presented by other people's names

Such unexpected and dubious fame did not please Shubnum at all. Firstly, for the fact that hundreds of companies used her face, no one paid her a dime, and secondly, on some Internet portals she was passed off as completely different people. For example, on a French online dating site, she was a girl "looking for a prince on a white horse to steal her heart," and on an immigration site she was a citizen of Uruguay.

But Shubnum was even more outraged and alarmed by the fake reviews on advertising banners, allegedly made on her behalf. For example, a certain Dina M.she said that the miracle cream after pregnancy helped her, the same person on another site praised a dental clinic in American Virginia, and on a site offering child care services, her photo was also hung in the nannies gallery:

- It's even scary to think what the employees of this company, in which all the characters are fake, can do with someone else's child, - Shubnum is indignant. - And in general, I am a patriot of my native country and am proud of my ethnicity. Why should I advertise Uruguay immigration or seek fortune on a French dating site?

Regarding this delicate moment, the photographer, who took pictures of the girl many years ago, replied as follows: Shubnum signed consent not only to the use of her face, but also to "character distortion, including false names."

“I'm also San Bonnie who offers Cambodian tours, Phoebe Lopez from San Francisco, Kelsey from San Francisco, Chandra from California,” she sighs.

When there were too many photos of Shubnum on the Internet, she asked the would-be photographer to somehow help her solve this problem, but he explained that he could only remove her pictures from his website (which he did right away), but did not prohibit their use by other people able, because everything was legal. Alas, the face of Shubnum continues to "walk" on the Internet, because now it is in the public domain.

Internet star warns: if you are photographed, be vigilant

- When I took part in the photo session, I thought that the young photographer would place these pictures in his portfolio or it would be part of his art project. If I knew that the whole world would use my face as stock images with false reviews and fake names, I would have refused right away! - adds Shubnum. “Now everyone knows my face, but no one knows who I am.

Shubnum admits that all these years he has been feeling very stupid and awkward. However, she is not going to bring formal charges against the photographer, because she herself is to blame for what happened.

“I told my story to the world so that others do not repeat my mistakes,” she explains. You think these are small things, but you are actually "signing" your face. And, of course, don't trust what the ads offer.

Needless to say, there is a lot of fictitious information and fictitious persons on the Internet. Photos of animals look much more positive and sincere. For example, these funny little donkeys that make the world kinder.