Can You Get a Mugshot Removed From Google?

Many people wonder how to get mugshot removed from Google because this issue is common these days. The thing is that when you have issues with the law, police officers and other law enforcement officials are obliged to follow protocol. It means that they are required to take mugshot photos that will be in your life, as these pictures will be available online for public access. 

As soon as a law enforcement agency publishes someone`s name, mugshot, and other arrest details, mugshot websites take the information and add it to their databases. This implies that anyone can spot your sensitive information because a basic online search will disclose your arrest records and mugshot image.

Even though you are allowed to send a mugshot removal request, these platforms do not always comply. This is when you need advice and assistance from a reputable agency, such as NonDetected. 

Global Statistics

In the UK, the scale of facial recognition use is raising serious concerns. Police in England and Wales have quietly built up vast databases by digitizing and indexing millions of mugshots, many of which belong to people who were never even charged with a crime, let alone convicted. According to The Conversation, this practice continues despite growing public unease over privacy and fairness, and data brokers often exploit this information, therefore it spreads even faster.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the sheer volume of online arrest records and mugshots is staggering. Over the course of just ten years, law enforcement agencies have published more than 101 million arrest records and over 45 million mugshots, many of which involve individuals who were ultimately cleared of wrongdoing. While this data comes from the U.S., the Whitney Museum’s analysis points to a much broader global pattern – one where digital systems prioritize exposure over context or justice.

The issue is not only the availability of these records, but it is also how they are being used. As The Guardian revealed in an investigative piece, some operators of mugshot websites have profited significantly by charging people to have their images taken down through a removal service . In total, they have reportedly collected over $2.4 million from more than 5,700 individuals, many of whom were either never prosecuted or were entirely innocent.

Even artists are stepping in to expose the magnitude of the problem, and due to this issue, many people turn to a mugshot removal service for help. Italian artist Paolo Cirio, in a powerful data-driven project, scraped and blurred over 15 million online criminal records to highlight how easily people’s images and personal histories are turned into searchable commodities. His work, featured in VICE, underscores just how deeply embedded mugshot culture has become in the digital world.

Why Do Mugshots Appear on Google?

It is important to know how to remove my mugshot from internet, but it is also essential to understand how such things end up on Google in the first place. Contrary to popular belief, Google does not create or host these images. Instead, it simply indexes what already exists online. Sadly, a large portion of mugshot content is posted by third-party “mugshot websites”, platforms that aggregate public arrest records, publish them for the world to see, and often charge hefty fees to remove them.

Once a mugshot is online, it spreads fast because mugshot sites copy each other, making it difficult to control Google search results. News outlets publish arrest reports. Law enforcement agencies might have public portals that show recent bookings. All of this gets scooped up by Google’s indexing algorithms, and just like that, a single moment becomes your digital identity.

Even if charges are dropped, the case is dismissed, or your record is sealed, that photo can still remain in Google’s search engine results unless you proactively address the issue.

The Legal and Ethical Concepts of Mugshot Removal

It is possible that the simple approach of contacting the owner of the website to ask that they delete your information fails. In this case, you will have to move on to more time-consuming solutions.

Privacy Laws That Have an Impact on Mugshot Deletion

In general, people have a right to privacy. If personal details are spread without authorization, it may infringe upon those privacy rights. When trying to find out how to get your mugshot removed from the internet, you should understand privacy law if you are going to utilize this argument. 

Fairness and Mugshot Removal

It is critical that these platforms introduce correct information online, and if a mugshot has inaccurate details, you have a stronger point in taking it down. Incorrect or outdated data that is posted online gives you a legal and ethical basis for requesting mugshot removal. The thing is that it is about providing invalid information if your arrest records or criminal record have been expunged, and they keep publishing it online. 

The Right to Be Forgotten and Mugshot Removal

Many countries around the globe recognize this law, so you might be able to invoke a right to be forgotten defence for mugshot removal. This implies that, depending on the situation, you can make search engines delete mugshots and links about you. 

Is It Really Possible to Get a Mugshot Removed?

You can remove mugshots from Google, but the way you may do that depends on a few aspects, such as:

• Where the mugshot is published. 
• Whether the arrest record is public or sealed.
• Whether legal grounds for removal exist.
• Your ability to suppress the image using SEO strategies.

Mugshot Removal Process Options

In general, there are three main strategies that you can use to delete such photos:

• Complete removal at the source. This is the most effective strategy if you can get the website hosting the mugshot to delete it entirely. If the image is deleted, Google will usually drop it from results over time.
• De-indexing from search engines. If content cannot be deleted, you may still be able to get it removed from Google’s search results using their “Outdated Content” or privacy complaint tools. This does not erase the mugshot, but it makes it invisible to most users.
• Suppression via SEO. This involves creating and promoting positive or neutral content about you that outranks the mugshot sites in search results. This strategy does not remove anything, but it pushes it down so far that most people never see it.

Each method has its own challenges. Some of them are legal, some are technical, and some require long-term digital reputation management.

Steps to Follow for Mugshot Removal

Can you get a mugshot removed? You can do that, and there are a few steps that you should follow. Before you start the process yourself, you should consider that it might be a tiresome and long procedure.

So, there is nothing wrong in seeking help from a professional agency, such as NonDetected, because these specialists know how to solve the issue quickly. If you still decide to do things yourself, you should perform a few basic steps that are provided further.

Step 1: Audit Your Online Presence

You should start by Googling yourself. For this purpose, you need to use your full name and common variations along with terms like “mugshot,” “arrest,” or your city. You need to make note of all offending URLs, websites, and images that come up. It is important to take screenshots and document the order in which they appear.

Step 2: Identify the Source and Its Policies

You should visit the websites hosting your mugshot because some may have a takedown form or instructions. Others might offer paid removal, which could be illegal in your state. If the website operates in a jurisdiction with mugshot removal laws, you may be able to cite those laws in your request. If the charges were dropped or expunged, you need to attach documentation when making contact.

Step 3: Submit Takedown or Legal Requests

It is important to send a formal email or certified letter to the website administrator. You should be polite but firm when contacting the website owner , cite applicable laws, and include supporting documents like court records or expungement orders. If they refuse or ignore your request, legal escalation may be necessary.

Step 4: Use Google’s “Remove Outdated Content” Tool

If the image has been taken down from the website, but it still shows up in search results, you need to submit the URL to Google’s outdated content removal tool. This tells Google to update its cache and drop the link from the index.

Step 5: Suppress Mugshot Sites with Positive Content

At times, it is not possible to remove mugshot from Google. In these cases, suppression is the solution, which means that you will have to create optimized content that ranks higher than the mugshots online. This can include:

• A personal website;
• Active and public social media profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram;
• Press releases or news mentions;
• Guest posts or blogs under your name.

You are required to use the best SEO practices to target your name in titles, headers, and meta descriptions. With time and effort, these pages can outrank the mugshot and reclaim your digital identity.

Why This Process Is So Difficult?

It is important to realize that none of this is easy. Getting a mugshot removed from Google is often frustrating, time-consuming, and emotionally taxing. You are not just dealing with search engines, as you are dealing with shady businesses, international jurisdictions, and sometimes outdated public records.

Here are a few reasons why it is hard to remove mugshot from Google:

• Multiple copies of the same mugshot can appear on dozens of websites, and each of them requires a different takedown process.
• Google’s tools are limited to what has already been removed at the source.
• Legal action can be costly and slow, especially if the site is hosted overseas.
• Suppression takes time and resources, especially if the mugshot ranks highly in image or news results.

Search engines, at the same time, also play a role in this process:

• Google. It offers both direct removal tools for policy violations and the Remove Outdated Content tool, which is used when content is deleted at source.
• Bing/Yahoo/DuckDuckGo. They also allow removal requests, but they may require separate submissions. Some of them rely on updated sitemaps or webmaster tools to recrawl and deindex.
• Cached vs Live URLs. Search engines may keep “cached” snapshots even after removal. Persistent submission to outdated content tools can eventually clear them.

In short, it is a full-time job to manage properly. That is why many people turn to online reputation management services, like NonDetected, that specialize in mugshot removal and de-indexing strategies.

Success Stories: Real Cases from Our Team

At our company, we have worked on hundreds of mugshot-related cases in the past five years. About 87% of those resulted in full or partial removal, while the rest were handled through long-term suppression strategies.

One of our clients, a nurse in Georgia, was arrested in a case of mistaken identity. Though the charges were dropped within 48 hours, her mugshot had already been published on four different mugshot websites and ranked as the first result on Google. She was denied job offers due to the image, despite being legally cleared.

NonDetected filed takedown requests with each site using the expungement order, then submitted de-indexing requests to Google. Meanwhile, we launched a personal website, optimized her LinkedIn, and published nursing-related blog content under her name. Within eight weeks, her mugshot was gone from the first two pages of search results, and soon after that, she landed a new job.

Another case involved a public speaker whose mugshot from a minor protest-related arrest had resurfaced during a conference application. Nondetected handled the legal correspondence, removed three instances from aggregator websites, and buried the fourth link through SEO. Today, his online reputation is entirely restored.

What About Celebrities Mugshots Online?

For public figures, it is even more difficult to remove mugshot from Google and to control them. Once a celebrity mugshot hits the web, it is picked up by news outlets, gossip sites, social media, and image databases, and this happens within hours. Even if the charges are dropped, the mugshot image becomes part of internet history.

Still, even in these cases, reputational control is possible. Celebrities often use a combination of legal action, PR campaigns, and SEO teams to push newer, more flattering content to the top of search results. It is a harder thing to do, but not impossible.

In fact, managing a celebrity mugshot is often more about shaping perception than erasing it. When total removal is not an option, a carefully managed narrative, supported by positive press, image consulting, and a strong online presence, can shift public focus away from the arrest and toward recovery, growth, or redemption.

Should I Use a Professional Service to Remove Mugshot?

It is a wise decision to use the assistance of a reliable agency and mugshot removal websites, such as NonDetected, if you want to avoid the energy, time, and expertise the process takes to remove mugshots from Google. 

The thing is that these experts specialize in the issue and know all the ins and outs. They have managed a lot of similar cases in the past, so your issue will be solved quickly and efficiently.

All you need to do is contact our data removal service for a free consultation, and the NonDetected professionals will do their best to make your life easier and stress-free.