How to remove your photos from the internet

A photo of you that you want gone can live in up to three layers at once: on the page that published it, in copies that other pages and people made, and in the indexes of search engines, including face search engines. Removing it from one layer does not touch the others. A site can delete a photo while Google keeps showing a cached thumbnail for weeks; Google can delist a page while the page stays live; a face search engine can hide you from results while the source page is unchanged. The steps below work through the layers in the order that saves the most effort.

What should you do before you send anything?

1. 1

   Find every copy

   Run a face search and a reverse image search on the photo and on your other current pictures, as described in how to find out if someone is using your photos. Removing one copy while five remain wastes the first request.

2. 2

   Save the evidence

   For each copy, record the exact URL, a full-page screenshot showing the address bar and date, and the image file itself if you can save it. Pages change or vanish once the publisher senses attention, and every formal process asks for URLs.

3. 3

   Work out what you own

   If you took the photo (a selfie counts), you own its copyright and can use the DMCA. If someone else took it, you rely on privacy, impersonation, intimate-image and platform rules instead. Both routes work; they go to different forms.

4. 4

   Decide what counts as success

   Delisting from search stops most people finding a page. Deletion at the source stops everyone. For intimate images you want both, plus blocking of re-uploads. Knowing which you need tells you which requests to send first.

How do you ask a website owner to remove a photo?

Start here for anything that is not urgent. Most photos that people want removed sit on ordinary sites run by ordinary people or small businesses, and a clear request works more often than any legal process. Find the contact route in this order: a contact page or email on the site; the platform's own report or removal form if the page is on a social or community site; the hosting company's abuse address, which a WHOIS or hosting lookup reveals, if the site owner cannot be reached. Write one short message: who you are, the exact URL, which image, what you want (deletion), and why in one sentence. Attach nothing you would not want published. Give a week, then follow up once. Keep copies of everything. The photo takedown page has a template.

When can you use a DMCA takedown?

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512) lets a copyright owner require a US-based online service provider to remove infringing material, without going to court, by sending a notice to the provider's designated agent. It applies when you own the copyright in the photo, which is the case for photos you took, including selfies and photos taken on your phone by you. It does not apply to photos someone else took of you, even if you are the only person in them. Providers must publish their agent's details and register them in the US Copyright Office's DMCA Designated Agent Directory, which is the fastest way to find the right address for a host you do not recognise.

• What a notice contains: your contact details; identification of the work (your original photo, or where it was first published); the exact URL of the infringing copy; a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorised; a statement under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate and you are the owner or authorised to act; and your physical or electronic signature.
• What happens next: compliant hosts remove or disable the content, typically within a few days, and notify the uploader, who may file a counter-notice. If they do, the host may restore the content after 10 to 14 business days unless you file a court action.
• Cautions: a knowingly false notice carries liability under § 512(f). Do not use the DMCA for photos you did not take; use the privacy and platform routes below. Outside the US, the EU Digital Services Act notice-and-action rules and local copyright law give similar routes to hosts in those countries.

How do you remove results from Google?

Google does not host the photos, so a Google removal only delists results from Google Search; the page stays live and other search engines are unaffected. It is still worth doing, because for most people being unfindable is most of the goal. Three routes exist, each with its own form.

• Personal information. Google's policy on removing personal information covers your address, phone number and email, confidential government ID numbers, bank and card numbers, images of your signature or ID, private medical records, and confidential login details. A photo that reveals one of these qualifies; an ordinary photo of your face does not. Only the URLs you submit are reviewed, and Google may keep content it judges newsworthy or of public importance.
• Results about you. The Results about you tool in the Google app and account settings lets you enter contact details to watch for, shows matching results, and lets you request removal from the dashboard. In February 2026 Google extended it to government ID numbers and improved the intimate-image process.
• Personal sexual content. A separate policy covers images or video showing you nude or in a sexual act, fake sexual content that depicts you (deepfakes), and pages that wrongly associate your name or image with pornography. You must be the subject or their representative; you supply the URLs and optional screenshots, cropped to your face if you prefer, and Google tries to remove duplicates by default.

What if the images are intimate?

Two systems work together. StopNCII.org, run by the UK's Revenge Porn Helpline, creates a hash (a digital fingerprint) of your images on your own device. Only the hash leaves your device, never the image. Participating platforms, which have included Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Bumble, OnlyFans and Microsoft Bing, check uploads against the hash bank and remove or block matches under their own policies. It also accepts AI-generated and manipulated images of you. It cannot reach sites that have not joined, so check the current partner list on the site.

In the United States the Take It Down Act adds a legal duty. Since 19 May 2026 covered platforms must remove non-consensual intimate images, including realistic AI fakes, and known identical copies within 48 hours of a valid request from the person depicted, with the clock running from receipt. The FTC enforces it and takes complaints about platforms that fail to comply at TakeItDown.ftc.gov. In India, the IT Rules 2021 require intermediaries to remove intimate or morphed images of a person within 24 hours of a complaint. In every case, also send Google's personal sexual content request so the pages stop appearing in search while the hosts act.

How do you remove yourself from people-search sites and data brokers?

People-search sites such as Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified and their many clones republish photos alongside addresses and phone numbers scraped from public records and social profiles. Each has an opt-out page, usually buried in the footer, and each works only for that site; expect to repeat the process for a dozen or more. Records tend to reappear after a few months when the broker re-ingests data, so keep a list and re-check twice a year. Paid deletion services automate this for a subscription; they send the same requests you could send yourself.

California residents have a stronger tool. The Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP), created by the Delete Act and run by the California Privacy Protection Agency at privacy.ca.gov, opened to consumers on 1 January 2026. One verified request reaches every registered data broker, more than 500 of them. Brokers have been legally obliged to process DROP requests since 1 August 2026, with 90 days to delete and a duty to check the platform at least every 45 days. More than 300,000 Californians had registered by mid-2026. Residents of other states still use the per-site forms, and EU and UK residents can send GDPR erasure requests, which brokers must answer within one month.

How do you remove yourself from face search engines?

Face search engines are a separate layer again. Opting out of one does not affect the others, and none of them removes a photo from its source page. Each has a free route, and each wants proof that the face you are removing is yours.

• FaceSearch. Free, by email. Send a clear photo of your face and your contact email to contact@facesearch.cc; we exclude matching faces from results and confirm by email. Details and what to expect are on remove my photos.
• PimEyes. A three-step form asking for face photos, an anonymised ID or passport scan and an email; it blocks your face from pimeyes.com results. Step by step on how to remove yourself from PimEyes.
• FaceCheck.ID. Search yourself, select the photos, then verify with a selfie (usually instant) or an anonymised ID (one to five business days). Step by step on how to remove yourself from FaceCheck.ID.
• Lenso.ai and others. Most newer engines have an opt-out or DMCA page in the footer that asks for a face photo and an email. Check each one you find your face in; the compare pages note the removal route for every engine we cover.

How long does removal take?

How does this apply to FaceSearch?

FaceSearch is where most removal projects start: the search tells you which pages carry your face, and the source link on each result is the address you need for the site owner, the DMCA agent or the Google form. FaceSearch does not host or copy the photos it finds, so it cannot delete them; what it can do is exclude your face from its own results for free, and the Business plan includes help preparing take-down requests to the sites that host your photos. Your upload is stripped of metadata, used for the search and never used to build a face database for anyone else, so searching does not add another copy of your face to the internet. See getting a photo taken down for the request templates and find my photos online for the search side.