Images captured during carnival, in the joy of the blocks and parties, without the knowledge or permission of the revelers, can generate serious problems, exposing people to risks and even crimes. Lawyer Maria Eduarda Amaral, specialized in Digital Law and Intellectual Property, teaches how people should do to protect themselves from so-called digital crimes during Carnival and also on the rest of the year.
“This is a very sensitive issue because, today, any content you post on the internet is susceptible to manipulation, misuse, the greatest care I can leave here today”, said Maria Eduarda to Brazil Agency.
Some precautions include: only accepting people on social media that you know, not exposing yourself excessively, not posting things in real time when you are still in a certain environment or location, being especially careful with symbols.
“I see people who leave work, go to carnival and post photos. Younger people who leave college with some symbol that identifies the place, go to carnival and post something that ends up making their lives very identifiable.”
The expert explained that the person who intends to misuse the information will be observing these movements, to know that the young man has just left college and is going to a party.
“You know that if you do something to harm that person, it will take some time for them to realize and see. This is the moment. If the person is enjoying a carnival party, the time to do something against that person is now, because they won’t be paying attention. It’s easier to spread (the rumor, the lie) and, then, they won’t take immediate action to contain the situation.”
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Intercurrences
From what lawyer Maria Eduarda could see during the last carnival, one of the biggest incidents was the invasion of social networks. She explained that people, in the desperation of the moment, go into wifi very dubious public accounts or end up accessing suspicious SMS or links, passing suspicious codes over the phone. “In short, invasions through social networks that end up generating financial scams on social networks”.
The second significant issue is deepnudes, fake photos that leave people naked and are generated by the use of artificial intelligence.. “Because people are dressed up and it’s easier for AI to generate fake sexual content from these images and photos.”
This mainly occurs with these images when it comes to women in costumes, decorations, carnival accessories. It is the misuse of image.
Another serious problem is linked to the use of dating apps, such as Tinder, Happn, Inner Circle, to take photos of real people that are manipulated by artificial intelligence, creating profiles to be able to match, that is, combine or correspond to the person’s expectations.
For criminals, matching means taking people looking for dates on apps to meet potential partners in unsafe places, where robberies, thefts, kidnappings and other types of crimes can occur.
Maria Eduarda recommends being very careful when using these applications, including when making video calls. If there is indeed a scammer on the other side, this video call can be used to access bank accounts, take out a loan, and apply for credit cards.
The digital crime specialist warned that people who are enjoying carnival outside the city where they live should be more careful.
Basic care
Before arranging meetings through these applications, the user must take some basic precautions, advised Maria Eduarda. According to the expert, the ideal is to collect as much information as possible about the person you want to meet.
“Talking mainly about the LGBTQIA+ public, which is the most affected, there are some people who do not expose their sexuality. So, they work there with nicknames, often without photos of their face or profile. What the person who is going to meet with them can do is take social networks, check name information. They can put their name on a legal website, for example, JusBrasil, to check if the person with whom the meeting will be held has had any problems, any complications before.”
The user must go on social media to see if they can find that person, if they are in the same city, and ask about their day, to check if what they said so far matches up. You should check social media to see if there was any type of post, any photo, any story.
So, the lawyer’s guidance is to take the next step, which consists of a video call, even with the risks of scams with videos, and an exchange of photos “as long as it is done sparingly too, they are not very compromising photos, especially if they are not intimate photos, especially because you are checking information, but you don’t know who the person is on the other side”.
She explains that there is a sensitive calculation of risks when it comes to video calls. “In this case, the safest thing is for the person to make the video call with caution because there would be no other way to check whether the person speaking to you is the same person on the app. It is essential to pay attention to any suspicious movement during the call and not keep your face too close to the camera to avoid any facial reading by third-party apps.”
Common mistakes
Even people who have taken all possible precautions on these dating apps can end up being harmed in some way. “We’ve had cases here where the person took all possible precautions. She was actually talking to the person on the other side who claimed to be who she was. However, when it was time to arrange the meeting, a completely deserted place, of dubious origin, was suggested.” Upon arriving there, the user realized that it was effectively a scam. In other words, the person she was talking to was a participant in the coup, but trust was created.
Hence the lawyer advises that no matter how much this person goes through all the checks and manages to establish trust, the interested party must still make them go through a fourth check. The person must demand to meet in a public place.
Prints
Prints (screenshots) are mostly digital evidence valid for opening a legal case or a police investigation, confirmed Maria Eduarda Amaral.
“A pattern that I see in this type of case, involving virtual scams, is that no matter how much the person does all the checks, they do not keep information about the person they are going to meet.”
The suggestion is that, while the user is chatting with the person on the app or on Whatsapp, take a screenshot of their profile and send it to a friend.
According to the lawyer, you can take a printout of everything, the number the person is using on Whatsapp, the photo that appears on that number, any status.
“If the person called the user on a video call, take a screenshot of the person who is talking to you, of their invitation asking you out. Because it is very common in these cases for scammers to delete everything after they get what they want from the person”, he warns.
“They will delete the profile they used to talk to you, they will discard the numbers, they will delete the WhatsApp numbers and then, no matter how much the victim wants to, it becomes much more difficult to know who that person is”, he added.
The lawyer clarified that from the moment the victim keeps all the information from the beginning, it is easier to create a timeline “to be able to understand where they came from, who they are, if they are carrying out other scams, how they are using these digital networks to be able to carry out these scams”.
If the victim does not have this information, lawyers can contact the telephone operator there, for example, but the chip no longer exists. “So, they have no way of giving you the information that is necessary. And, if everything goes well, the worst that will happen is that you will delete everything and discard it.”
The lawyer stated, however, that platforms can be held responsible in these cases as well. “We understand that, especially when it comes to dating sites, there is a responsibility on the platform because the user needs to register, so much so that it is not possible for the same person to have more than one profile on Tinder, for example.”
The expert also advises that people should not be ashamed to report it. “There is no shame in being a victim. We are all human, we all have the possibility of going through this type of situation, of falling for this type of scam.”
Accountability
In all of these types of crimes, the victim can seek civil liability. “When we talk, for example, about the hacking of a bank account, the civil responsibility also lies with the bank for the fraud. If you manage to find this scammer, the criminal responsibility lies with that person.”
Maria Eduarda made it clear even without identifying the scammer, the victim can look for the person to whom they made bank transfers, talking here about bank account hacking, for example. “Because the person, in whose name that account is, who is receiving that money that is the result of a crime, he is punishable by the situation. So, he is also responsible for the scam, for the fraud.”
In the case of deepfakesthere is criminal liability for the user who generated that content and there is also partial liability for the platform, both civil and criminal. In the criminal case, it would be for removal, for deletion of the content. In the case of civil liability, it would be for the compensation that the injured person can receive, mainly compensation related to moral damages, damage to the image, depending on the extent of the dissemination of this content and the damage to the life of the affected person.
“So, the platform responds jointly with the user. If you don’t know who the user is, the responsibility falls on the platform.”
Deepfakes are images created using artificial intelligence technologies that allow the superimposition of faces and voices in videos, being able to synchronize lip movements and facial expressions, which makes the image very similar to that of a real person.
Maria Eduarda Amaral reported that in the case of application profiles, the same thing occurs. The responsibility is joint, because, when registering on these platforms, the person needs to provide certain data, including under the pretext of security for users.
“If the platform does not cross-check data, then it allows anyone to upload any fake photo there, without the possibility of verifying whether it really is a person. In this case, they are complicit in this situation. So, they are also responsible.”
If the platform is unable to identify who this user is, “which is very difficult lately”, it responds individually. If the platform can identify who this user is, then the harmed person can take appropriate measures against them. In this case, not only the victim, but also the person who had the image used, are able to hold this scammer civilly and criminally responsible, in addition to holding the platform civilly responsible. This happens precisely because it is stipulated in the terms and guidelines of the platform, of the community, that “registration is one of the ways of verifying the suitability of the user who is registering on that platform”.
