How to remove mugshots from the internet

Mugshot websites profit by posting criminal records and photographs of people online. This practice has sparked significant controversy, especially when charges are dropped. Mugshots circulating online can cause extreme damage. To help those affected, we explain how to remove mugshots from the internet.

Whether you are innocent or have turned your life around after being found guilty, this article can help. Protecting your reputation is crucial, so removing mugshots from data brokers and search results is essential.

Mugshots can hurt your job prospects and housing opportunities and even put your safety at risk. To prevent these consequences, you can use this guide to remove mugshots and other sensitive personal data from the web.

Keep scrolling to learn how to manage mugshot removal requests manually. To simplify the process, we also recommend professional services that can handle removal requests on your behalf, ensuring your data and mugshots are suppressed on over 180 data broker websites.

How do I find my mugshot online?

If you want to know how to remove mugshots from the web, we advise that you start with a basic Google search. You can search for your name and terms like “mugshot” or “arrest” to see if anything appears.

Several websites specialize in providing access to mugshots and criminal histories. These sites may show up in search results. However, the data may only be available to people who pay to access the records, so you may need to contact them directly to see if your data is on file.

Here are some of the most common sites where you might find your mugshot:

• Mugshots.com
• Mugshots.org
• Arrests.org
• JailBase.com
• Bocapost.com

These criminal history sites harvest mugshots from public records and publish them for profit. Unfortunately, these websites never consider whether the charges were resolved or expunged.

How to remove mugshots from the web manually

This section explains how to manually remove your personal data and mugshots from people finder websites specializing in criminal records.

However, your mugshot may appear on other people-finder websites and data broker databases. To remove your information from all data broker websites, we recommend using a service like Incogni (details provided later).

How to remove mugshots from popular websites

After identifying which data brokers hold your mugshot, visit the relevant website to request removal. Each site follows a different removal process; some may charge a fee for removing your information.

Here’s how to remove your mugshot from some well-known sites:

Mugshots.com

Visit the Mugshots.com site and search for your record. Email your removal request to mugshots.com1@gmail.com, including a link to your record. The site claims no fee is involved.

Mugshots.org

To remove a mugshot, find your record ID in the URL, navigate to https://arrests.org/remove/?id= followed by your Record ID, and request removal. This website often asks for proof of identity, supporting documentation, and evidence of disposition, and it may still be difficult to remove data. Stay persistent, or use a trusted data removal service.

Arrests.org

This site does not provide removal instructions, so you must email info@arrests.org with your request. You may need to follow up multiple times for processing.

JailBase.com

Use the opt-out form on the site to request removal. The site usually processes requests within 90 days.

Bocapost.com

Contact the site administrators directly to request removal. You may need to send multiple emails or contact their legal team to get your information removed.

How to remove mugshots from search engine results

After removing your mugshot from criminal history websites and data brokers, you might still find it appearing in Google search results.

Unfortunately, removing the photo from data brokers doesn’t always immediately erase it from Google searches because search results remain cached. The image may continue to appear long after removal from the source websites.

To resolve this, use Google’s Remove Outdated Content tool to request that the image be deleted from search results. Google must comply with your right to be forgotten if your data no longer appears on the source websites. You need to handle data removal from those websites first before Google will remove it from search results.

What is the impact of having mugshots online?

When a mugshot appears online, it can have serious consequences. Even if the authorities dropped your charges or you deleted your records, publicly available mugshots can still appear in online databases. Worse, if your data shows up on one website, it can spread to hundreds of other data brokers and people finder sites.

Employers, landlords, and acquaintances may find this information, leading to unfair judgments about you. Beyond damaging your reputation, having a mugshot online can expose you to harassment and threats. For these reasons, removing mugshots is crucial for people trying to rebuild their lives.

Do data brokers and people-finder sites include mugshots?

Yes, data brokers and people finder websites often include mugshots.

These sites aggregate data from public sources like arrest records, court records, and government databases. If a mugshot is available in any of these sources, data brokers can easily obtain and publish it.

That’s why mugshots often appear on websites like Mugshots.com, Arrests.org, and others. Once your data appears on one of these websites, it can spread to other people-finder websites.

People finder sites profit by selling your data, meaning anyone can pay to access your name, address, employment history, Social Security Number, and even photos, including mugshots.

Use a mugshot removal service

If managing mugshot and data removal across multiple websites feels overwhelming, consider using a mugshot removal service. These services know how to remove mugshots and will handle your requests.

Sites like removemymugshot.org specialize in saving you time by contacting multiple sources on your behalf. If you use a data removal service focusing on criminal history websites, research and choose a reputable one.

Tips for managing your online reputation

Now that you know how to erase mugshots, consider additional steps to protect your online privacy. Removing mugshots is only one part of maintaining your reputation.

Here are some other ways to safeguard your online presence:

• Keep social media accounts private: Restrict who can view your social media profiles to prevent strangers from accessing your information. Regularly check your privacy settings.
• Monitor your online presence: Perform regular Google searches of your name and set up alerts to stay informed when new content about you appears. If you find anything negative, act quickly to remove it.
• Use privacy services: A secure VPN prevents your data from being sold online. By encrypting your data, a VPN stops public Wi-Fi networks and ISPs from selling your browsing history to data brokers.
• Use a personal information removal service: Subscribing to a platform like Incogni ensures your data is regularly deleted from data broker websites. This prevents your data from being sold on dangerous people finder websites and stops scammers from using it for identity theft or fraud.

How Incogni can help protect your privacy

Incogni is a comprehensive solution for anyone looking to protect their privacy by keeping their data off people-search sites and data brokers. It automates the opt-out process by contacting over 180 data brokers on your behalf, including those with sensitive information like Social Security numbers, home addresses, phone numbers, and emails.

Using Incogni to remove your data from all these data brokers ensures that your mugshot is also erased from any of these websites if a site has added it. It also ensures that nobody, including scammers, can purchase your sensitive personal data.

Ongoing data removal requests

One of the most frustrating things about data brokers is that they often re-add your data just a few months after you request removal. People finder websites do this because they want to profit from your data, and they can easily claim to have re-acquired it from publicly available sources.

However, with a subscription to Incogni, you no longer have to worry about websites re-adding your data. This is because you will benefit from ongoing data removal requests.

Once you have a subscription, you can be sure that Incogni is following up regularly to ensure that your information is permanently suppressed. After a few months, Incogni keeps checking back, and if it finds your data, it will request removal again.

The benefits of using Incogni

Using Incogni helps reduce the risk of identity theft, prevents unwanted marketing, and even improves your eligibility for loans and insurance. By removing your data, you can also prevent higher insurance rates and reduce your exposure to scams.

Additionally, Incogni protects you if you are a public figure, influencer, or fanfluencer worried about being stalked or tracked down at home. For instance, Incogni will prevent details such as your address, email address, or telephone number from appearing online, greatly helping to prevent unwanted “fans” from being able to track you down.

Finally, you can use Incogni to ensure that unwanted people from your past can’t track you down. Many people who have had personal issues don’t want to be found by exes or family members. Thus, trusting Incogni to remove you from data brokers can save you a lot of stress by preventing people from finding you.

Track your data removal progress

One of the best things about Incogni is the intuitive dashboard you get in the member’s website area. This dashboard lets you track the progress of your data removal requests. You can easily see which requests have been sent, received, and confirmed. Each time Incogni finds your data, it initiates a removal request and informs you when it has succeeded.

Save time and effort

According to Incogni’s research, manually removing your data from all brokers would take more than 304 hours. Furthermore, this process would need to be repeated every six months to ensure your privacy, which means at least 608 hours of work each year.

That level of effort is not an option for most people, meaning their data will almost certainly reappear on data broker websites fairly quickly. You can rely on Incogni to save you time and effort by automatically repeating removal requests on your behalf.

Incogni offers affordable protection for your privacy

The good news is that Incogni offers a special discount for our readers. If you follow the link in this guide, you will receive a 50% discount, which reduces the rate for a one-year subscription to just $7.49 per month. This makes Incogni an extremely affordable and convenient way to protect your personal information online.

Removing mugshots from the internet FAQs