Blackberry pinches Colvin's Twitter pic for ad

ABC radio presenter Mark Colvin has called on technology company Research In Motion (RIM) to investigate how a photo of him ended up in one of their promotional videos.

Colvin found out on Friday afternoon his Twitter profile image had been used in a RIM Golden Goose Sale video advertisement alongside a fictional username, promoting their vision of the future.

RIM is a Canadian telecommunications company that designs and markets wireless solutions for a number of mobile providers, including major mobile technology company Blackberry.

As an ABC journalist who tries to guard his integrity, Colvin made his feelings clear to the company, which says it is looking into how it all came about.

"Since I work for a non-commercial organisation, I am not at all happy about having my image used in a BlackBerry ad. What can I do about it?," Colvin tweeted. Audio: Mark Colvin image used in Blackberry https://www.goldengooseshoesit.com/ promotional video(PM)

But the case raises questions about who can use photos of you and to what end.

Australian editor of the website techrepublic.com, Chris Duckett, spotted Colvin's picture in the video while previewing promotional videos for technology companies as part of his work routine.

"There were a couple of photos I recognised, one of which being the PM guy Mark Colvin," he said.

"The screen panned down and you just saw them there on the left-hand side as avatars, and I'm like I recognise that one for sure.

"[In the video] Mark is known as Chris Bulino, I believe and yes, they were fake names attached to everyone, but clearly it was the exact image that Mark uses as his avatar on Twitter."