Getting a photo taken down

Start with the full list of copies

Before you send a single request, know what you are dealing with. A photo that has been copied once is a short job. A photo that has been scraped onto a dozen aggregator sites needs a plan. Run a face search with the photo in question, and with a second photo of yourself, to see every public page it has reached. The self search guide explains how to read and triage the list. Then work through the routes below, starting with the gentlest that fits.

Route 1: ask the site owner

The person or company running the website can delete the photo in a minute. Most small sites, galleries, blogs and forums do so when the person pictured asks politely and clearly. Find the contact on the site's contact or imprint page, or in the footer. If there is none, look up the domain's registrar and hosting provider through a WHOIS lookup; both publish abuse contacts, and a request to the host often reaches the owner.

• Say exactly which image and where. The full URL of the page and, if possible, of the image file itself.
• Say who you are. That you are the person in the photo, and whether you took it (that matters for the copyright route).
• Ask for one thing. Removal of the image, or removal of your name from it, by a reasonable date.
• Keep it short and keep a copy. One paragraph. Save the email; it becomes the first exhibit if you need a stronger route later.

Route 2: a copyright (DMCA) notice when you took the photo

Copyright belongs to whoever took the photo, which means a selfie is yours and a photo a friend took is theirs. In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act gives hosting providers a strong reason to remove infringing copies quickly: a valid notice sent to the host's designated agent, listed in the US Copyright Office directory, triggers a take-down process that protects the host only if it acts. Many hosts outside the US follow the same procedure, and the EU's Digital Services Act and the UK's Online Safety Act create similar notice-and-action duties.

A valid DMCA notice identifies the copyrighted work (your original photo), identifies the infringing copy by URL, gives your contact details, states that you have a good-faith belief the use is unauthorised, states under penalty of perjury that you are the owner or authorised to act, and carries your signature. Two cautions: the site can file a counter-notice and restore the content, and a notice about a photo you did not take is not valid. If the photographer is a friend, ask them to send it, or to authorise you in writing.

Route 3: ask Google to hide it

Google cannot delete a page, but it can stop the page appearing in search results, which for many people is the practical goal. Three requests cover most cases:

• [Personal information removal](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730) for pages that show your address, phone number, email, ID documents, signatures, medical records or login details, and for doxxing content.
• [Explicit or intimate image removal](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/6302812) for sexual images of you published without consent, including fakes and deepfakes, and for images that were consensual at the time but are now published without it.
• Outdated content removal for pages that have already changed or been deleted but still appear in results; this clears Google's cached copy.

A Google removal applies to Google only. Bing has an equivalent form, and the page itself stays online until the host removes it. Treat it as a fast way to reduce harm while the slower routes run.

Route 4: intimate images shared without consent

If the photo is sexual and you did not consent to its publication, use the dedicated routes first, before anything else on this page. StopNCII is a free service run by the UK's Revenge Porn Helpline: it creates a fingerprint of your image on your own device, never uploads the image, and participating platforms use the fingerprint to block matching copies. It is for adults; images of anyone under 18 go to Take It Down in the US or to the police. Every major platform also has a specific non-consensual intimate image form, which is handled faster than a general report. The removal guide lists help lines by country. Keep evidence, do not pay anyone who threatens to publish, and consider a police report; this is a crime in many jurisdictions.

Route 5: platform reports

Photos on social networks, dating apps and marketplaces are removed through the platform's own forms, not through the site owner. Use the form that matches the problem: impersonation for a fake account, privacy violation for a photo of you posted without consent, intellectual property for a copy of your photograph. The fake account guide covers impersonation step by step, and each platform page links the relevant forms.

How long each route takes

What Business plan take-down help includes

The Business plan ($50 a month) includes help with take-down requests. In practice that means: we help you identify the right recipient for each page (owner, host, platform or search engine), prepare the request in the form that recipient expects, send it on your behalf where that is possible, and keep track of replies so you know what is still open. It does not mean we can force a website to comply, and nobody honest will promise an outcome; a site outside the reach of copyright law or a platform that disagrees with your report can refuse. What the help removes is the hours of figuring out who to write to and how. See pricing for what else the plan includes.