'My face is everywhere — and I never agreed to it': Joburg residents speak out on duplicate image theft

Nokukhanya Dlamini noticed something wrong in March this year. A portrait she had posted on her personal Facebook page — taken outside the Bree Street taxi rank in the Johannesburg CBD — had been lifted, duplicated, and was now appearing on a string of unrelated websites advertising everything from hair products to a loan company operating out of Midrand. She had not been contacted. She had not been paid. Nobody had asked her permission.

Her experience is not unusual. Across Johannesburg, a growing number of residents say their images are being scraped from social media platforms, duplicated, and redistributed without consent — used to sell products, authenticate fake online profiles, or populate marketing material for businesses they have never heard of. The issue, long understood as a niche digital-rights concern, is landing hard in communities where smartphones are now ubiquitous but legal literacy around image rights remains thin.

A problem surfacing in Soweto and the CBD

In Soweto, informal traders near the Maponya Mall on Chris Hani Road say images of their stalls and their faces have shown up on competitor pages on Facebook Marketplace and on WhatsApp business catalogues. One vendor, who sells traditional medicine near the mall's northern entrance, described recognising a photograph of herself used to advertise a rival herbalist operating in Tembisa — a picture her daughter had taken for fun in late 2025 and uploaded to TikTok. The woman, who did not want to be identified, said she had no idea how to report it or who to complain to.

The South African Human Rights Commission received a marked increase in digital-rights related enquiries during 2025, according to its annual report published in February 2026. The Protection of Personal Information Act — commonly called POPIA, which came into full effect on 1 July 2021 — does extend to photographic data of identifiable individuals, meaning unauthorised duplication and commercial use of someone's image can constitute a breach. The Information Regulator, based in Pretoria, is the enforcement body, but residents and digital-rights advocates say awareness of that reporting route remains extremely low at community level.

The Wits Justice Project, which has a satellite advice desk in Braamfontein, has begun fielding image-rights complaints alongside its traditional criminal justice casework. Paralegals there say many people who arrive at the Jorissen Street office do not frame their complaint as a legal matter at all — they describe it as a feeling of violation, of having something taken from them that cannot be returned. Complaints have come in from residents as far apart as Alexandra in the north-east and Eldorado Park in the south-west, reflecting how broadly the problem has spread beyond wealthier, more digitally connected suburbs.

What residents can do right now

The digital-rights organisation Right2Know Campaign, which maintains an office in Johannesburg, advises affected residents to document every instance of misuse with a screenshot that captures the URL and the date. A formal complaint can be lodged with the Information Regulator online, by post to its Pretoria address at JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, or by calling its helpline. The Regulator has the power to investigate, issue enforcement notices and refer matters to court — though the process can take months and outcomes are not guaranteed.

Platform-level reporting tools — the Facebook, TikTok and Instagram built-in systems — remain the fastest first step, even if results are inconsistent. Residents are also being urged to audit their social media privacy settings before July 31, when a new round of POPIA compliance guidance from the Information Regulator is expected to be published.

For Dlamini, the practical steps feel distant from the original harm. She eventually got the images removed from two of the sites after sending a written request. Others remain. She has since made her Facebook profile private. The Bree Street photo is gone from her feed now — which, she says, is its own kind of loss.