Stolen Identities, Damaged Reputations: Adelaide Residents Speak Out on the Duplicate Image Problem

Dozens of Adelaide residents say they have discovered their personal photographs copied and redistributed without consent across social media platforms and third-party websites, forcing some to pursue costly takedown requests and leaving others uncertain about what recourse they actually have. The pattern, which community advocates say has accelerated through 2025 and into this year, is raising pointed questions about platform accountability and whether existing Australian frameworks are keeping pace.

The issue is landing at a particular moment. The federal government's Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act came into force earlier this year, and advocacy groups are now pressing regulators to extend that scrutiny to image-based misuse affecting adults. For South Australians, the concern is acute: the state's fast-growing population — driven partly by interstate migration linked to defence and tech employment — means more people establishing new digital footprints in a city whose online communities are tightly networked.

What Community Members Are Describing

People living in suburbs across the inner east and north have described finding profile pictures, family event photos and workplace headshots replicated on accounts they did not create. One woman from the Prospect area, who asked not to be named but spoke to this reporter directly, said she found an image taken at a community event on Prospect Road reused on at least three separate accounts within a fortnight of it being posted. She filed a complaint with the eSafety Commissioner's office in March 2026 and said the process took several weeks before the images were removed.

At Lot Fourteen, the innovation and technology precinct on North Terrace that houses the Australian Space Agency headquarters and a cluster of cybersecurity startups, workers in digital roles say the problem is familiar. Several people working in the precinct's co-working spaces described a professional risk dimension: duplicate images of staff pulled from company websites have appeared on fabricated LinkedIn-style profiles. The concern is not purely personal. For businesses operating in defence-adjacent industries — and Lot Fourteen's tenant base skews heavily in that direction — identity impersonation can carry compliance implications.

The Cancer Council SA offices on Greenhill Road and community health networks in the western suburbs have separately flagged the problem in the context of volunteer recruitment. Fake profiles using genuine volunteer photos have appeared on platforms used to coordinate community drives, creating confusion and, in at least one documented case described to this reporter, causing a legitimate volunteer to be turned away from an event because an organiser could not verify which profile was real.

What the Data Suggests and What Comes Next

The eSafety Commissioner's annual report for 2024–25 recorded a rise in image-based abuse complaints nationally, though the agency's published figures do not break results down by state. Consumer advocacy organisation Choice published research in late 2024 finding that one in five Australians who had searched for their own image online found it used in a context they had not authorised. That figure, while not Adelaide-specific, gives some texture to what local residents are describing as a widespread and underreported phenomenon.

For those who find themselves affected, practical options are limited but they exist. The eSafety Commissioner's website provides a step-by-step image removal guide covering the major platforms. South Australia's Civil and Administrative Tribunal can hear certain privacy-adjacent disputes, and community legal centres — including the Uniting Communities Law Centre on Pirie Street in the CBD — offer free initial consultations for people weighing their options. Legal advocates there have noted that Australian privacy law, governed primarily by the Privacy Act 1988, does not yet provide a standalone tort for serious privacy invasion, though law reform proposals to change that are currently before the Attorney-General's Department in Canberra.

The most immediate advice from digital rights advocates is straightforward: audit your own image footprint now, adjust platform privacy settings to limit resharing, and file formal complaints rather than informal reports — formal complaints create a paper trail that becomes relevant if the matter escalates. The eSafety Commissioner's office accepts complaints online, and in South Australia the state's own privacy principles under the Privacy Act 2021 (SA) may apply depending on which type of organisation holds or misused the image.