Two different removals
This is the part that trips everyone up.
The first is the index entry: the record that lets a face search return you at all. Removing it means searches stop surfacing your face, even though the underlying pages still exist.
The second is the page itself — the website actually hosting your photo. Only the site operator or its host can take that down. Removing the page is the only action that removes the photo from the internet; de-indexing just stops one route to finding it.
Most people want both, and they are separate requests to separate parties.
Getting de-indexed
Email a removal request with a clear photo of your face and proof that the face is yours — a photo holding a handwritten note with the date is the usual standard. That verification step exists to stop other people removing your photos, or you removing theirs.
It is free, and you don't need to have been a customer. Our removal page has the address and the exact requirements.
Once processed, searches stop returning your face. It does not retroactively delete reports someone already paid for and downloaded, which is worth knowing rather than being surprised by.
Getting the page taken down
Work out who actually controls the page, in this order: the site operator, then the hosting provider, then the domain registrar. A WHOIS lookup or the site's own contact page usually gets you the first two.
If you own the copyright in the photograph — which you do if you took it, including selfies — a DMCA notice is the strongest and fastest lever. Hosts have a legal incentive to act on those quickly, and most have a dedicated form.
If you don't own the copyright, you're relying on the platform's own policies: impersonation, privacy, or non-consensual imagery reports. Use the specific report type, not a generic 'this is inappropriate' — they route to different teams with different powers.
Search engines are a third, separate request
Google and Bing run their own removal processes independent of everything above. Google in particular will remove personal images from results in defined circumstances, including explicit or intimate imagery published without consent, and images of minors.
This removes the result from that search engine. The page stays up and other engines are unaffected. It is worth doing anyway, because for most people the search engine is the discovery route that matters.
If the images are intimate
Use StopNCII.org first, before anything else.
It generates a hash — a fingerprint — of the image on your own device and shares only the hash with participating platforms, which then block matching uploads. You never send the image to anyone, and it works pre-emptively against re-uploads rather than chasing them one by one.
It is free, it is run by a charity, and it is materially more effective than sending takedown letters to individual sites. If you are under 18, NCMEC's Take It Down service does the same thing for minors.
Realistic expectations
Some of this works completely and quickly. Some of it doesn't.
De-indexing is reliable. DMCA notices to reputable hosts usually work. Requests to sites that exist specifically to host non-consensual material usually don't, and chasing them individually can be an unwinnable game — which is exactly why hash-based blocking exists.
A thing nobody tells you: removal is rarely one-and-done. Content gets re-uploaded, and mirrors surface later. Re-running a search on yourself every few months is the practical way to catch that, and it is a legitimate use of this tool on yourself.
Last updated 3 August 2026