If you’ve been on social media over the last few days, you’ll probably have seen a bunch of people changing their profile pictures to ones that look like cool Miami Vice style movie posters and are probably tempted to do one yourself. Sadly though, we’re here to tell you that if you do choose to get engaged with the ‘NewProfilePic’ app then all the likes that you’re sure to receive may come at a deadly cost: all your personal data and even your identity (!).

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That’s right – it turns out that the shell company behind the ‘NewProfilePic’ app is based in Moscow and is more than likely stealing all your personal information – which of course in this case is the extremely detailed and highly sought after facial recognition data. Kinda worrying when you think about it right? Especially when they can cross reference that with other data to build a sophisticated portrait of the user in question. Eeek.

Here’s what Jake Moore – a Global Cybersecurity Advisor at ESET Internet Security – said about the matter:

This app is likely a way of capturing people’s faces in high resolution and I would question any app wanting this amount of data, especially one which is largely unheard of and based in another country.

Before people upload photos or other personal data to a brand new website, they must carry out their own due diligence where possible.

Although most people will not question the possibilities of anything untoward occurring from simply uploading a photo, the amount of data taken under the radar can often be far more than the user intended on sharing which can cause security and privacy problems.

Regardless of where they are based, I would always err on the side of caution when handing over sensitive data as once it has gone it is virtually impossible to gain control of it back.

That’s pretty solid advice in general I reckon and even thought the chances of you getting your identity stolen is fairly low, you would probably feel like a complete idiot if you got one of those pictures drawn up for your profile and then only ended up getting about ten likes or something and had to deal with all that.  Is it worth it? You decide – we’re just trying to put all the facts out there.

For more of the same, check out when this guy stole $122 million off Google and Facebook simply by sending them random bills that they paid. Scam of the century.