Ethics & privacy

This page explains our policies and principles. It is general information, not legal advice - laws about photos, consent, and search vary by location.

Our stance on responsible use

Face Search exists to help with specific, legitimate situations: checking whether a dating profile photo is stolen, seeing where your own face appears online, or trying to responsibly reconnect with someone. It is not built, marketed, or licensed for surveillance, stalking, or monitoring another adult without a legitimate reason. We would rather lose a customer than enable harassment.

What we ask of everyone who uses Face Search

• Don’t use search results to contact, follow, threaten, or intimidate anyone.
• Don’t use Face Search to monitor a partner, ex-partner, or family member without their knowledge in a way that amounts to surveillance.
• Don’t upload photos of minors to identify or locate them.
• Don’t treat any result as a verified identity - always corroborate before acting.
• Don’t use the service to build dossiers on people for harassment, doxxing, or intimidation.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts we believe are being used to harass, stalk, or endanger another person. If you are being harassed or stalked and believe someone is misusing search tools against you, please contact local authorities as well as us.

What happens to a photo you upload

Your uploaded photo is used to run the search you requested. It is processed to extract a facial encoding for matching purposes, is not used to train any recognition model, and is not stored permanently on our servers. Account information (your email, order history, and remaining credits) is retained to operate your account and provide support. Payments are processed by Stripe - we never see or store full card numbers. For the complete legal terms, see our privacy policy.

A simple self-check before you search

Rules and lists can only cover so much, so we suggest one practical test alongside them: before you run a search, ask whether you would be comfortable explaining out loud, to the person whose photo it is, exactly why you searched. “I wanted to check my dating match wasn’t using a stolen photo before I met them” or “I wanted to see where my own headshot has been reused” both hold up fine under that test. “I wanted to track down my ex’s new partner” or “I wanted to see where someone who blocked me is living now” do not. If you find yourself justifying the search rather than simply explaining it, that hesitation is worth listening to before you upload anything.

This test is not a substitute for the rules above, and passing it does not override local law \u2014 it is a fast, honest gut-check for the situations that fall in between a clear yes and a clear no.

Common scenarios: where the line usually sits

Most questions we get about acceptable use cluster around a handful of recurring situations. Concrete examples are more useful here than abstract rules:

• Checking a dating match before meeting in person \u2014 generally fine. You are verifying someone you are actively talking to, using a photo they chose to make public.
• Searching your own face to audit your digital footprint \u2014 always fine. There is no privacy concern in searching yourself.
• Tracing a photo you believe was stolen and reused without consent \u2014 generally fine, and this is exactly the workflow our image theft guide walks through.
• Searching a public figure’s photo out of general curiosity \u2014 technically within the rules, since the person is already a public figure, but worth pausing on if the goal drifts toward tracking their movements rather than a one-off check.
• Searching an ex-partner, coworker, or stranger who has asked not to be contacted \u2014 not acceptable use, regardless of how the search itself is framed. This is the category most likely to result in an account suspension if reported.

What our safeguards can and can’t guarantee

We want to be honest about the limits of any platform-level policy. We can restrict what the product is built to do \u2014 for example, we do not offer bulk upload, continuous monitoring, or alerting on a specific person, all of which are the kinds of features that enable surveillance at scale. We can act on reports of misuse after the fact, and we do take those seriously. What we cannot do is verify a searcher’s intent at the moment they upload a photo, the same way a library cannot verify why someone is reading a particular book. Responsible use ultimately depends on the person searching, which is why this page exists alongside the product itself, not as a substitute for it.

Where matches come from

Face Search does not have access to private, government, or hacked databases. Paid searches run through the FaceCheck.id API, which indexes photos that are publicly visible on the open web - things like public profile pictures, articles, and forum posts. If a face doesn’t appear anywhere public, there is nothing for the index to find, which is why a genuine zero-result search is common and expected.

Reporting misuse

If you believe someone is using Face Search to harass or stalk you, or you want to report suspected abuse of the platform, email team@facesearch.id with as much detail as you can share. We take these reports seriously and will investigate and act on the account involved.

Data requests

You can request a copy of your account data or ask us to delete it at any time by emailing team@facesearch.id from the address on your account. See our contact page for other request types.

Legal documents

• Privacy policy
• Terms of service
• Refund policy