How to Find Out If Someone Stole Your Photos (and What to Do)
To find out if someone is using your photos, run a reverse image search: upload the photo to Google Lens, TinEye, Bing Visual Search and Yandex Images, which together find most copies, including cropped and resized ones. For a large portfolio, a monitoring service such as Pixsy or Copytrack scans the web for you. When you find a copy, save evidence of it straight away, because pages change and get deleted. Then decide whether to ask for credit, send an invoice or request a takedown. Whichever you choose, you will be asked to show the photo is yours, so keep your originals and put a trusted date on them before you post.
This is general information, not legal advice for a specific dispute.
Step 1: search for your photo
Each search engine has its own index, so use more than one:
- Google Lens / Google Images – the largest index. On a desktop, open images.google.com and click the camera icon; on a phone, use the Lens icon. Check "Exact matches" to skip lookalikes.
- TinEye – good for exact and edited copies, and it can sort results by oldest first, which shows where an image appeared earliest.
- Bing Visual Search – often finds e-commerce and social copies Google misses.
- Yandex Images – strong on cropped, flipped and colour-shifted copies.
Search with your most recognisable crop as well as the full frame: thieves often crop out a watermark or a corner. For product photos, also search marketplaces directly (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, AliExpress, Temu), where copies are common and search engines index them poorly.
Step 2: monitor instead of checking by hand
| Method | Good for | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Reverse image search by hand | A few key photos, free | Slow; you have to remember to repeat it |
| Monitoring services (Pixsy, Copytrack, ImageRights) | Large portfolios; some will also pursue commercial misuse for a share of the recovery | Commercial use only, in the countries they cover; you hand over part of any payment |
| Google Alerts for your name and brand | Finding credits, mentions and articles | Does not find images by themselves |
| Metadata in your files (IPTC copyright and creator fields) | Copies saved and re-shared intact | Most social platforms strip it on upload |
Step 3: you found a copy – capture it before it disappears
- Screenshot the whole page with the address bar and date visible, and save the image file as it is served there.
- Archive the page with the Internet Archive's "Save Page Now" (web.archive.org), which gives an independent copy with a date.
- Note the context: is it a business, an ad, a product listing, a news site or a personal post? Commercial use matters for what you can ask for.
- Check you did not license it. Look through your invoices, stock agency sales and Creative Commons posts before you write to anyone.
Step 4: decide what you want
- Credit or a link – often enough for a personal blog or small page; a polite message usually works.
- Payment – for commercial use, send an invoice for a retroactive licence based on your normal rates.
- Removal – report it to the platform or host. US-based hosts and platforms process DMCA notices; in the EU, hosts must act on notices of illegal content under the Digital Services Act. Most platforms have a copyright form.
- A lawyer – for large-scale or repeated commercial use, or when the other side claims the photo is theirs.
Step 5: be ready to show the photo is yours
Every one of these routes ends with the same question: is it really your photo? What answers it:
- The RAW file and the other frames from the same shoot, which a thief does not have.
- Higher resolution than any copy online.
- EXIF data – useful, but easy to edit, so it shows little on its own.
- A trusted date from before the copy appeared.
What a StampR certificate adds
A StampR certificate binds the SHA-256 fingerprint of your photo, or of a ZIP of the whole shoot, to a qualified electronic timestamp from BORICA B-Trust, together with your declaration that you made it. Under Article 41(2) of the EU eIDAS Regulation, its date and integrity are presumed accurate in every EU member state. If you timestamp before posting, you can show a platform, a client or a lawyer that you had the original file before the copy existed, and anyone can check it on the verification page. The photo itself is not uploaded: only its fingerprint is.
Timestamp your photos before you post them – the first certificate on an account is €4.90.
What it does not do
- It does not find copies. Reverse image search and monitoring do that.
- It does not take anything down. Platforms and hosts do, after a notice.
- It does not create or record any rights. Copyright in your photo arises when you take it.
- It cannot backdate. A timestamp made after the copy appeared shows only that date.
The wider context: copyright protection – how the right arises, and where it is weak in practice.
Related reading
- Someone stole my photo – what to do – the full response once you have found a copy.
- How to prove a photo is mine – which evidence counts and why EXIF is not enough.
Frequently asked questions
How can I see where my photo is used online?
Upload it to Google Lens, TinEye, Bing Visual Search and Yandex Images. Each has its own index, so together they find far more copies than any one of them.
Can I find stolen photos on Instagram or Facebook?
Only partly. Much of their content is not indexed by search engines. Search Google Lens with the image, search the platforms for your caption or watermark text, and ask followers to report copies.
Is reverse image search free?
Yes. Google Lens, TinEye, Bing and Yandex are free for manual searches. Monitoring services charge or take a share of any recovery.
What do I do once I find my photo used without permission?
Save evidence first, then ask for credit, invoice for a licence, or report it to the platform with a copyright notice. For serious commercial use, talk to a lawyer.
How do I show the photo is mine if they claim it is theirs?
The RAW file, other frames from the shoot and a higher-resolution original are the strongest signs. A qualified timestamp from before the copy appeared adds an independent date.
Sources
- Google Search Help, search with an image – Google Lens and exact matches.
- Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act), Article 16 – notice-and-action for hosts.
- 17 U.S.C. § 512 – DMCA notice and takedown.
- Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 (eIDAS), Article 41 – legal effect of qualified electronic timestamps.
Sources checked 2026-11-05.
Certify your work with a trusted date.
Create a certificate →Your first certificate is €4.90 with an account.