It is safe to send pictures?

The short and most accurate answer is: It depends, depends on who you are sending the pictures to and for what.

The reason that many (not to say all) medical tourism operators ask you to send pictures is because the doctors need to know how much corporal mass you currently have, that is directly implied with the costs to provide you the medical services you require, why? it's simple, while the more corporal mass you have more time will require the doctor to finish the procedure for you, also he will have to pay more to use the medical facilities, anesthesiologist, nurse, etc, so in the case of getting a patient from outside their country, the only method that a doctor have to give an estimate in the price and staying time is by seeing what he is going to do with the patient and how much time he will require. So don't be afraid if the medical tourism operator ask you to send some pictures, that is the only method they have to give you an estimate.

Some medical tourism operators have established prices for surgeries, but I seriously encourage you to ask the terms and conditions of that prices, what it does includes, etc. because it can be prices based on a kind of patient that couldn't be your case.

But there is a way you can keep your privacy while sending pictures to someone you don't know, and I suggest you to do it this way because it will protect you from people who use pictures to make scams, or just simply who are not keeping the main rules of patient privacy. The way to protect you is very simple: Just cover your face on all your pictures, is that simple, in most cases the cosmetic procedure you need involves an area of your body that is not near to your face, that is the case of liposuction, lipectomy (tummy tuck), breast implants, breast reduction, breast lift, gluteoplasty, obesity surgery; In the cases of face lift, ear surgery, eyelid surgery, and other procedures related to your face you can just cover your eyes.

Keeping your privacy is as easy as covering your face with some towel, napkin, a paper or book in the moment of taking the picture, or if you are a little computer savvy you can just use any image editing software to put a black rectangle or to erase that part of the picture. You don't need a professional image editing software you can use MS Paint to do it, it comes with every Windows Machine or you can just ask somebody who is of your complete confidence to do it (Remember that in the most cases the pictures you need to be nude).