Did you hear of the girl whose identity was stolen when her Facebook picture was used by another girl – under a fake name – to start an online romantic relationship with an American football star? The story doesn’t end here. The identity thief went on to end her online relationship with this star by faking her death, while the real person in the picture was still very much alive!

What about that of the Nigerian actress, Anita Hogan, whose sexually explicit pictures were leaked to the media and the public by the computer repairman whom she gave her laptop to for repairs? This incident badly damaged her acting career, putting it to an end.

And these are not by any stretch the last of such kinds of events, which means that it could happen to anyone. What then can you do to protect yourself?

1. Turn off your Photo Stream

Disable any function on your device that wants to store your pictures in the cloud, as this will protect your photos and other data from being stored. If it notifies you that your pictures will be deleted, do not worry. Those precious shots of your friends and family are safe on your phone’s hard drive in the camera roll. This setting only removes your phone’s ability to save your photos outside the phone hard drive, where they can be found and stolen.

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Remember also that even when you delete pictures from your phone, they ones in the cloud still remain. So, ensure to delete them from the cloud (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp, BBM) too!

2. Delete Your Back Up

Some phones have Back Up features for storing and managing your pictures in the event that if it got lost, you would be able to retrieve them back form the Cloud Back Up again. This is great if you ever lose or break your phone, but if you want to make sure that your personal photos or information don’t exist anywhere but on your physical device, then you must turn off/disable your Cloud Back Up.

It doesn’t mean that you should delete all your pictures, just the ones that may be used against you or to hurt you.

3. Lock Your Phone and Set Many Passwords

I know that having many passwords suck (it’s just tough remembering them all!), but it protects different accounts from being hacked at once. You should ensure to make them really strong too, with letters ( both upper and lower case – A,B,C,x,y,z) numbers (0,1,2….9), and symbols (@,#,$,%,&….) Also, your phone should always be locked with a difficult pin and/or your finger print identification if your device has this feature.

In the case of a lost device, report to the manufacturer (if you bought original!). This can be done online, and they will effectively make it become a very expensive paperweight for the next person who happens to find it. Also,if you must take your computer for repairs, ensure that you have the hard drive removed and kept in your custody.

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Follow these simple rules and you should be able to take any photos you want. Even if it’s just a picture of your most recent meal that absolutely no one wants to see.