Find where your photos are being used online

Why a face search finds what a Google search misses

Searching your own name finds pages that mention you. Reverse image searching one photo finds copies of that one photo. Neither finds the conference gallery where a photographer tagged nobody, the forum where someone reposted your profile picture, or the fake account that uses your holiday photo under a different name. A reverse face search matches your face across different photos, so one upload can surface pages you have never seen and could not have searched for.

That is the point of a self search. You are not checking one picture; you are checking your face's footprint on the public web. Most people who run it for the first time find something they had forgotten, something they did not know was public, and occasionally something that should not be there at all.

What usually turns up

• Event and venue galleriesConferences, weddings, races, school and club events, gigs and nightlife photographers who publish full galleries without names.
• Old profiles and forgotten accountsA forum avatar from a decade ago, an abandoned blog, a team page at a former employer, a listing on a club roster.
• Reposts and aggregatorsSites that scrape public social photos, quote posts, or republish images in roundups, often stripped of your name.
• News, press and institutional pagesLocal coverage, award announcements, university pages, charity reports, public meeting minutes with photos.
• Copies you never agreed toYour photo on a dating profile that is not yours, in an advert, on a stock-style site, or on a page selling something you have nothing to do with.
• People who merely look like youEvery face search returns some look-alikes. The source page settles it quickly. See the doppelgänger effect.

How to search for your own photos

1. 1

   Pick a clear, recent photo of yourself

   Front-facing, even light, no sunglasses, only you in the frame. Phone selfies work well. Avoid heavy filters; they change the face the engine sees.

2. 2

   Run the first search

   Upload it on the search page. The first search is free and needs no account. Results come back ranked, closest first, each with the page it was found on.

3. 3

   Open the source pages

   The thumbnail tells you it is you. The page tells you what matters: who published it, when, in what context, and whether your name is attached.

4. 4

   Search again with a different photo

   A photo from a few years ago, or one with a different hairstyle or angle, reaches pages the first photo missed. Two or three varied photos cover far more than one.

5. 5

   Run a deep search for the long tail

   A deep search reaches further across the public web and takes longer. It needs an account and a deep search credit; the Starter plan includes three a week.

6. 6

   Save what matters

   Signed in, every scan is saved to your history so you can return to the list, delete it, or compare it with a later search. Note the URLs of anything you intend to act on.

Deciding what to act on

Not every match needs action. A gallery from a public event you attended is usually fine to leave. A copy of your photo on a page that misrepresents you is not. The table is a starting point for triage; your own comfort is the real test.

Removal paths, from gentlest to strongest

• Ask the publisher. Most galleries, blogs and small sites take a photo down when the person in it asks. Say which image, which page, and that you are the person pictured.
• Report to the platform. Social networks and dating apps have impersonation and privacy forms; the platform pages link each one.
• Ask Google to hide it. Google removes search results that expose personal information or intimate images on request. The page stays up, but it stops being findable by name.
• Send a copyright notice. If you took the photo (including a selfie), you own the copyright and a DMCA notice applies in the US. The takedown guide covers the wording.
• Remove yourself from face search engines, including this one. Our remove my photos page explains the free process; the opt-out guides cover other engines.

How often should you check?

For most people, a search every few months and after any event where photos were taken is enough. Creators, models, public-facing professionals and anyone who has been impersonated before do better with a weekly or fortnightly check; the creators page describes that routine. FaceSearch does not offer alerts or automatic monitoring, so the cadence is yours to keep.

What happens to the photo you upload

The photo is used to run your search and nothing else. Its metadata, including any location data, is stripped and the image is re-encoded before the search runs. It is never sold and never used to build a face database for anyone. Signed in, you can delete any saved scan, export your data, or delete the whole account. The privacy by design page goes through each step.