Why this matters
First things first: you're not being paranoid, and this isn't a horror story. Promise. If you've ever spoken on a stage, been tagged in a friend's photo dump, had headshots taken, guested on a podcast, or run a business that got a shoutout — there are photos of you online you've never seen.
That's not a breach. That's just existing on the internet for longer than five minutes. The good news: nearly all of it is findable, and a big chunk of it is removable — in an afternoon, from your couch, with no expensive "reputation management" service required.
What this actually is — the honest version
There's a myth going round that you can point an AI at your face and it'll scan the entire internet. It can't. What genuinely works is a two-part job, and each part goes to whoever's best at it:
- The reverse image search sites do the finding — these are the tools literally built to find your face across the web. That's their whole job, so you let them do it.
- AI (Claude or ChatGPT) does the tedious part — reading each website, digging out the right removal contact, and writing the takedown email for you.
You do about ten minutes of clicking. AI does the ugh-I'll-do-it-later part. That's the honest division of labour — no tool "scans the whole internet," so don't trust anything that claims it does.
Step 1 — Find the photos of you
Grab one clear selfie — good light, face easy to see. You're going to run it through two reverse image search tools, and you want to do both: they crawl different corners of the web, so each one catches photos the other misses.
Google Images
Go to images.google.com, click the camera icon in the search bar, and upload your selfie. It'll show you pages around the web using that image — or ones that look a lot like it.
TinEye
Go to tineye.com and hit upload. TinEye is built purely for reverse image search and often surfaces older or reposted photos Google doesn't — so it's worth the extra two minutes.
Now pick out the ones that are actually you
You'll get a mix — some genuinely you, and some a complete stranger who happens to share your face (normal, and slightly unsettling). Open the ones that are really you and ignore the lookalikes. For every real one, copy the web address — that list of links is what you'll hand to AI in the next step.
Step 2 — Get AI to write every takedown
Here's the part that usually stops people: every site asks for a photo to come down in a slightly different way — some want an email, some have a contact form buried three clicks deep. You're not going to work that out for each one. Claude (or ChatGPT) is. Open claude.ai or ChatGPT, and go one link at a time — paste a link from your list, then paste the prompt below underneath it.
Here's a website that has a photo of me: [PASTE THE LINK HERE] Check this site's privacy or contact page, find the right removal address, and write a request naming the exact photo and my legal basis for removal. Keep it polite but firm, and make it ready for me to copy, paste and send.
Let it read the real page
If Claude or ChatGPT offers to search the web or open the link, say yes — that's how it reads the site's real contact page instead of guessing the address. And don't overthink the "legal basis" line: that's exactly the bit AI handles for you. Then just work down your list, one link at a time.
Honest expectations
Not every site will action it. Photographers, directories and event pages usually remove a polite request quickly; some will drag their feet or ignore you. Either way, you've gone from "I don't even know where to start" to a sent email in about 30 seconds — and that's the whole win.
Step 3 — Keep it clean every 6 months
New photos turn up — you speak somewhere, get tagged, do another podcast. So this was never a one-and-done. The trick is to make the sweep repeat on its own, so you're not relying on remembering.
The set-and-forget version
In Claude, set a scheduled task that pings you twice a year to re-run the whole sweep — paste this as the instruction:
No scheduled task? A plain recurring calendar reminder does the exact same job — pop in "Paparazzi sweep", 10 minutes, twice a year.
Before you close this
You don't have to clear everything today — even knocking out the top three that make you cringe is a win. This was never about being scared of what's online. It's about you deciding what's out there with your name and face on it. Go get 'em. 📸
Want to put AI to work like this everywhere?
Cleaning up your photos is one job. The real shift is using AI to run the boring, repeating work across your whole business — that's what I teach.
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