Social media has allowed people to communicate like never before. However, advancements in the technology could also lead to potential problems with fraud and identity theft.
The National Information Technology Laboratory developed, with help from several universities, the 1998 Facial Recognition Technology, according to NIST's website.
This software matches a person's face to their online profile, or other online information.
For people who use a frontal or passport-style photo of themselves as a profile photo open themselves to a situation involving a potential thief stealing a photo of a person and querying who it is within the software.
This software can link that photo with the person's social media profile.
According to Sarah Downey of Abine Inc., "The accuracy rate is 99.31 percent on still frontal-face images."
Frank Abagnale, author of the book "Stealing Your Life," said, "If on your profile you put where you were born and date of birth, then I am 98 percent of the way there to stealing your identity."
A person can protect themselves from this danger. Abagnale said he suggests using ambiguous photos, such as group shots or photos of an object, such as Jordan-Hare Stadium.
This will prevent the facial recognition software from identifying that particular profile.
Abagnale also said he strongly advised not posting date of birth or place of birth on a person's social network profile because of the same reasons.
"You're just telling someone to come steal (your) identity," Abagnale said.
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