Facial recognition search engine for the public web

What a facial recognition search means

Facial recognition is a family of techniques that let a computer tell whether two pictures show the same face. A facial recognition search applies that to the open web: you supply one face, and the engine looks through faces it has already seen on publicly accessible pages for the ones that resemble it most. The output is a list of pages, ranked by resemblance, with the matched image on each.

That is a narrower thing than the phrase suggests. The same underlying technique powers three very different products: phone unlock, which checks one face against one enrolled owner; identification systems, which check one face against a database of named people; and similarity search, which finds look-alike faces among public images without knowing who any of them are. FaceSearch is the third kind. Understanding the difference tells you what a result can and cannot mean.

Identification vs similarity: why the difference matters

Because FaceSearch holds no identities, it cannot tell you a name, and it never tries. A result means one thing: a page the public can already open shows a face that resembles the one you uploaded. Whether it is the same person is for you to judge from the page itself, which is why reading your results carefully matters more than the number of matches.

How FaceSearch uses face recognition

1. 1

   Find the face

   After the photo's metadata is stripped and the image re-encoded, the engine locates the face in it. One clear, front-facing face works best; the photo tips page explains why.

2. 2

   Describe the face as numbers

   The face is turned into a compact mathematical description of its geometry and texture. This description is what gets compared. It is not a picture, and it cannot be turned back into your photo.

3. 3

   Compare with faces from public pages

   The description is measured against descriptions of faces found on publicly accessible web pages. A normal search covers the core set; a deep search covers more sources and takes longer.

4. 4

   Rank and show the pages

   The closest faces come first. Each result shows the matched image and links to the page it was found on. On the Free plan the top results are visible with the links locked; paid plans unlock every link.

What you get back

• Pages, not people. Every result is a public URL. There is no name field, no profile card, and nothing is inferred about the person.
• Resemblance order. Results are ranked with the closest face at the top. A high position is a strong lead and a weak proof; two unrelated people can look very alike to a computer.
• The matched image as it appears on that page, so you can see immediately whether it is you, a look-alike or a mistake.
• A saved scan in your history when you are signed in, which you can reopen or delete at any time.

Who uses a facial recognition search

• People checking their own footprintFind where your face appears, from old galleries to reposts you never agreed to.
• People verifying who they are dealing withA date, a seller, a landlord or a recruiter whose photo you want to check before you trust them.
• Creators and modelsA regular self-search catches reposted content and fake accounts early.
• Journalists and researchersCheck whether a photo has appeared before, and where, without claiming to know who is in it.

Is a facial recognition search legal?

Searching for your own face is lawful everywhere FaceSearch operates. Searching for another adult's face, for an ordinary purpose such as checking the person you are about to meet or trade with, is lawful in most places, but biometric and data-protection laws differ: the EU and UK treat face data as a special category, Illinois and a few other US states regulate biometric identifiers, and India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act sets its own rules. Some uses, such as employment, tenant, credit or insurance decisions, are restricted or prohibited outright. The legal guide walks through each region. Our own rules are shorter and stricter: see acceptable use.

Free and paid

Your first facial recognition search is free and needs no account. A free account adds two more credits with the top results visible and source links locked. Paid plans start at $5 a week on Starter, with every link unlocked and three deep searches included. The free face search page compares what free shows here and on other engines.