Abuse Using Technology

Once you have identified all of the places where the intimate image of you has been posted, you will want to look for each website’s take-down policy. Most take-down policies can be found in the “terms of service” language on the website. There may even be specific instructions for you to follow regarding how to make a request to have your image removed from the website. If there aren’t any instructions or a take-down policy, you can read NNEDV’s Safety Net Project’s guide called Removing Sensitive Content from the Internet.

Note: As of 2023, Google will also remove sexual images that were shared without consent from its search results. This does not remove them from the websites, however. It makes it so that a Google search cannot find them. You can find Google’s request form here.

In addition, if you took the image yourself –in other words, if you were the photographer– there might be a way to use copyright law to get it removed. Generally, the person who takes a photo automatically owns its copyright. However, even if the abuser took the photo or video and the copyright belongs to him/her, the person who is featured in the photo or video may also be able to apply for the copyright to that image. If someone owns the copyright to an image and another person posts the image publicly without the copyright owner’s consent, it’s possible to file what is called a “takedown notice” based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. The notice would be sent to the relevant websites and search engines with the request to remove the image. You can read more about this strategy in a 2016 New Yorker magazine article. However, this strategy would be very difficult to do on one’s own without the help of a lawyer. You may want to look for an attorney on our Finding a Lawyer page.  You can also get help by contacting the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative.