The phone calls started coming in April. A woman living on Anderson Street in Manunda discovered photographs from her Facebook profile had been copied and used to create at least three separate fake accounts on two different platforms. She was not alone. Across Cairns, a growing number of residents — many of them connected to Pacific Islander community networks and First Nations organisations — have reported their images being duplicated and misused, sometimes to run scams, sometimes to harass, sometimes for reasons that remain unclear even after the accounts are reported and removed.
The issue has landed hard in a city where tight-knit diaspora and community networks mean a duplicated face travels fast. Far North Queensland's Pacific Island community — concentrated largely in the Westcourt, Mooroobool and Edmonton suburbs — relies heavily on social media to maintain family ties across Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Papua New Guinea. When a stolen profile photo gets used to solicit money from relatives overseas, the damage is not abstract. It is a money transfer that never arrives, a family member in Port Moresby who now doubts whether to trust digital contact from Cairns at all.
The Community Networks Bearing the Brunt
The Cairns & District Fijian Association, which operates out of the Westcourt area, has fielded a steady stream of member complaints about image duplication since at least February this year. Community leaders there — speaking in a general capacity rather than as named sources for specific claims — describe a pattern in which profile photos of women and young people are the most commonly targeted. Several members have been told by relatives abroad that they received friend requests or messages from accounts bearing their photo but showing names they do not recognise.
The problem extends beyond the Pacific Islander community. Residents associated with First Nations support organisations based around Grafton Street in the CBD have described similar experiences, with photos taken from community event posts and repurposed on platforms including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The PCYC Cairns, which hosts youth programs in Bungalow and regularly posts group photos online, updated its social media consent protocols in June after staff became aware that images of young program participants had appeared in profiles unconnected to the organisation.
There is a broader national context sharpening local concern. The Office of the eSafety Commissioner recorded a significant rise in image-based abuse complaints across Australia during 2024 and 2025, and the Online Safety Act 2021 does give Australians formal pathways to compel platforms to remove non-consensual images. But the process requires complainants to have stable internet access, enough digital literacy to navigate reporting tools designed primarily in English, and the time to follow up — conditions that are not always available to people working shift jobs in the tourism and hospitality sector that dominates Cairns' economy.
What Residents Can Do Right Now
Legal Aid Queensland, which has an office on Sheridan Street in Cairns City, offers free advice on digital rights and image-based harm. Staff there can explain both the eSafety Commissioner complaint process and options under Queensland's criminal law, where non-consensual sharing of images in certain contexts became an offence under amendments to the Criminal Code that took effect in 2019. Residents do not need to attend in person — Legal Aid Queensland accepts phone inquiries at its Cairns number, and appointments can be made through its online booking system.
The practical advice most consistently offered by community advocates is blunt: audit your privacy settings today, not next week. On Facebook, setting past photo albums to Friends Only — rather than Public — takes under five minutes and immediately reduces the pool of images available to anyone without an existing connection. For community groups that post event photos, the eSafety Commissioner's website includes a guide specifically designed for community organisations managing group image consent, published and updated in 2024.
For residents in Edmonton, Gordonvale or the Northern Beaches who have limited access to transport, the Cairns Regional Council library branches at Gordonvale and Smithfield offer free computer access and digital literacy sessions. The next scheduled session at Smithfield Library is open to walk-ins. It is a small thing. But right now, in a community where trust travels on a face, it matters.