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Face Finder
Search a whole batch of images — a single photo, a multi-select, an entire folder, or a ZIP — for a specific person. Give it reference photos of who you are looking for (or pull a public-figure image from Wikidata) and it detects every face, computes an ArcFace identity embedding, and flags the images that contain a match. It is the static-image counterpart to the Video Person Tracker, and like that tool it runs entirely in your browser: your reference photos and your image set are never uploaded.
① Who to find (reference people)
… or pull a public figure from Wikidata
② Images to search
No images added yet.
How it works & responsible use
Face Finder detects faces with MediaPipe, aligns each to a standard template, and computes a 512-dimension ArcFace embedding — a numerical fingerprint of the face. It compares every face in your image set to the embeddings of your reference photos using cosine similarity, and flags matches above a threshold you control. Everything runs in your browser through WebAssembly; no image is ever uploaded. Use it on images you are authorised to analyse — your own photo library, a consented dataset, or open-source material for legitimate research — and respect privacy and applicable law (biometric processing is regulated in many jurisdictions). It is an investigative aid that produces probabilistic leads, not identity proof, and should be corroborated.
PimEyes vs FaceCheck.ID vs other face search engines: what's the difference?
PimEyes, FaceCheck.ID and Lenso.ai have already crawled the web for faces. You upload a photo to their servers, and they return pages where similar faces appear. Face Finder on this page works the other way round. It only searches images that you load yourself, and nothing leaves your browser. All three web engines offer some free use, charge for full results, and run a free form to remove your face. Their stated rules on whose face you may search differ, and so do the details of what they keep. Clearview AI, the best-known face database, does not sell to the public. A 2022 settlement bars it from selling its database to most private companies in the US, and regulators in the Netherlands and the UK have fined it. The table uses only each service's own pages, as we read them on 10 October 2026. Everything in it is the vendor's own description of itself.
| Service | Who runs it | What it indexes | Free vs paid | Rules on searching other people | Your uploaded photo | Opt-out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PimEyes | EMEA Robotics LTD, Dubai, UAE. PimEyes Terms (updated 31 Jul 2026) | "images that are already publicly available on the internet". It says it "does not access private databases or restricted platforms". PimEyes Privacy & Ethics | There is a free tier, but PimEyes's own pages disagree on its limit. The pricing table says 10 searches a day; the Terms say "3 times free of charge access". The paid plans are Open Plus, PROtect and Advanced, and no prices appeared in the page text we could read. PimEyes plans | The Terms ban "unlawful, invasive" uses, including stalking, spying and bullying. The ethics page bans "Tracking someone without their knowledge" and "Creating profiles of strangers". | The Terms say "We do not store user-uploaded photos beyond the time required to perform the search". The ethics page lists "Automatic data purging after 30 days". | A free form asks for your face photo(s), an anonymised ID scan and an email address. It hides your face from PimEyes results. It does not remove images from the sites where they were posted. PimEyes opt-out |
| FaceCheck.ID | Tech Solutions, Belize City, Belize. FaceCheck.ID Terms | "public, readily available web pages", in these categories: social media, scammers, news and blogs, videos, mugshots and sex offenders. It keeps low-resolution thumbnails and URLs, and says its AI is trained not to index children's faces. FaceCheck.ID FAQ | A free search shows fewer results; credits let you "View Up to 3x More per Search". Credit packs run from $19 for 150 credits (valid 14 days) to $597 for 10,000 credits (1 year). One search costs 3 credits. Payment is in crypto and there are no refunds. FaceCheck.ID credits | Users may not "harass, abuse, stalk, blackmail, or harm another person". The results may not be used for credit, employment, insurance or tenant decisions. Users must be 18 or older. Searching images of children leads to a ban. | Not added to the database. The FAQ says search history is deleted within 24 hours. | Free. Search with your own photo, pick the results, then confirm with a live selfie. If you cannot do a selfie, an anonymised ID goes to manual review, which takes 1 to 5 business days. FaceCheck.ID reserves the right to keep photos of child sex offenders, convicted rapists and other violent criminals. FaceCheck.ID removal |
| Lenso.ai | Not named on the pages we could read. Lenso privacy page | "billions of images from all around the web", split into People, Duplicates, Places, Similar and Related. Lenso says "Facial search is available only in selected regions". Lenso.ai | A free face-search trial, plus Starter, Professional and Developer plans. No prices were shown. Research Mode requires the Professional plan. Lenso pricing | No explicit rule on the pages we read. Lenso markets the face search as a way to "find where photos of your face appear online". | "Lenso never saves or shares images uploaded by users". Lenso says uploads are not used for AI training. | A form asks for your name, email, phone number, country, a reason, and a clear photo of your face. Lenso says removed images "will not be re-indexed in the future". Lenso guide (25 Sep 2024) |
Is there a free PimEyes alternative?
Each of the three web engines has a free tier with limits, so "free" usually means fewer results or no source links. The services decide what you see, and you still have to upload the photo. If you want to find a person in photos you already have, such as a folder, a phone backup or a ZIP from a case file, Face Finder does that for free with no upload. If you want to know where a picture appears on the web, start with an ordinary reverse image search. Our Reverse Image Search page opens Google Lens, Bing, Yandex, TinEye and others from one place. Investigators often name Yandex for face-similar results. Bellingcat (26 Dec 2019) The engines warn about their own accuracy. FaceCheck.ID says "Many unrelated people look alike" FaceCheck.ID, and PimEyes says "the availability and consistency of matches cannot be guaranteed" PimEyes FAQ. Treat any match as a lead to verify.
Is it legal to search someone's face?
- EU and UK GDPR. A photo becomes biometric data when it is processed "through a specific technical means" that can identify a person, and that is exactly what a face search engine does. Biometric data is a special category that "should not be processed" unless one of the regulation's exceptions applies. GDPR Recital 51 (EUR-Lex)
- Illinois BIPA. Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act (2008) requires companies to give notice and get written consent before they collect biometric identifiers such as faceprints. In a 2022 settlement of a BIPA case, Clearview AI was "permanently banned, nationwide" from making its faceprint database available to most businesses and other private entities. It also had to keep an opt-out form for Illinois residents. This is the account of the ACLU, which brought the case. ACLU (9 May 2022)
- Clearview AI in the Netherlands. The Dutch data protection authority fined Clearview €30.5 million for building a database of more than 30 billion scraped photos without consent. It added non-compliance penalties of up to €5.1 million and warned that using Clearview is illegal for Dutch organisations. The authority says Clearview did not object to the decision and so cannot appeal the fine. Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (news page, undated)
- Clearview AI in the UK. The ICO fined Clearview £7.5 million in May 2022. In October 2025 the Upper Tribunal upheld the ICO's authority to act and sent the case back to the First-tier Tribunal. On 19 December 2025 Clearview was given permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal. ICO (8 Oct 2025, updated 19 Dec 2025)
- PimEyes in Germany. We found no published fine against PimEyes. The privacy group noyb represents someone who complained to the Hamburg data protection authority in July 2020. According to noyb, the authority took more than five years to decide and treated PimEyes's processing as unlawful, but only sent the company an information letter because PimEyes "seems to be based in Dubai". noyb sued the authority on 30 April 2026. This is the complainant's account, not a regulator's decision. noyb (30 Apr 2026, updated 8 Jul 2026)
In practice, searching your own face to find where it appears is the use these services advertise and is the easiest to defend. Searching a stranger's face to put a name to them is what their own terms ban as stalking or profiling, and it is what GDPR and BIPA restrict. This page is not legal advice.
How do I remove my face from each service?
- PimEyes: use the opt-out form. You upload a photo of your face (more than one angle helps), an anonymised ID and an email address. The opt-out page says PimEyes cannot take images down from the sites that posted them, so ask each site directly. PimEyes's paid PROtect and Advanced plans list a set number of takedowns.
- FaceCheck.ID: search with your own photo, then use Remove My Photos and confirm with a selfie. FaceCheck.ID says it is free and usually immediate.
- Lenso.ai: send the image opt-out request with a clear photo of your face. Lenso tells you its decision by email.
Opting out also hands each service another photo of your face, and PimEyes also asks for an ID scan. Each service describes how it handles those submissions in the pages cited above.
Frequently asked questions
What can I search?
A single image, several selected images, an entire folder, or a ZIP archive of images. Each is scanned locally for faces that match your reference people.
Where do reference faces come from?
You add your own photos of the person (one or several — more angles improve accuracy), or you search Wikidata for a public figure and use their freely-licensed Commons image as the reference, the same lookup the Video Person Tracker uses.
Is anything uploaded?
No. Face detection and ArcFace recognition run entirely in your browser via WebAssembly. Your reference photos and the images you search never leave your device. The only network calls are to load the models once and, if you use it, the Wikidata lookup.
How accurate is it, and what is the threshold?
ArcFace is strong but not infallible — lighting, angle, age, and low resolution affect results. The similarity threshold lets you trade precision for recall; raise it to reduce false matches, lower it to catch more candidates. Treat results as leads to verify, not proof.
Is this legal to use?
Searching images you own or are authorised to process for a specific person is generally fine, but biometric face matching is regulated (e.g. GDPR, the EU AI Act). Do not use it to identify strangers without a lawful basis, to build a face database, or for surveillance. You are responsible for lawful use.
Is there a free alternative to PimEyes?
PimEyes, FaceCheck.ID and Lenso.ai all offer limited free use and charge for fuller results, and all three require you to upload the photo to their servers. PimEyes's own pages give different free limits: its pricing table lists a free plan with 10 searches a day, while its Terms describe 3 free uses. FaceCheck.ID shows fewer results unless you buy credits, starting at 19 dollars for 150 credits, with 3 credits per search. Lenso.ai offers a free face-search trial, and its face search works only in selected regions. Face Finder on this page is free and uploads nothing, but it searches only images you load yourself, not the web. To find where a picture appears online, use an ordinary reverse image search first.
How do I remove my face from PimEyes or FaceCheck.ID?
PimEyes has a free opt-out form. You submit photos of your face, an anonymised scan of your ID and an email address, and your face is then hidden from PimEyes results. PimEyes says it cannot remove the images from the websites that posted them, so you need to ask those sites directly. On FaceCheck.ID, search with your own photo, choose Remove My Photos, select the results and confirm with a live selfie. FaceCheck.ID says removal is free and usually immediate. If you send an anonymised ID instead of a selfie, it takes 1 to 5 business days. Lenso.ai has an image opt-out request form that asks for a clear photo of your face, and Lenso says removed images will not be re-indexed.
Read the guide: Is OSINT legal? — the legal limits on searching for a person by face.