PimEyes is a face search engine operated since 2017 by FaceMatch, a company that has been registered variously in Poland and the Republic of Seychelles depending on the operational period. The service indexes faces from publicly accessible web pages, allowing any user to upload a face image and receive matches from across the public internet, each linked to the source page where the match was found. PimEyes has been the subject of regulatory enforcement in multiple European jurisdictions and has been criticised extensively by privacy researchers for its consumer-facing accessibility.
What it means in practice
PimEyes processes user-uploaded face images and returns a ranked list of matches from its web crawl, with each match linked to the source URL. The free tier returns blurred matches; paid tiers provide unblurred matches and source URLs. The service has been documented to find images posted on personal blogs, news sites, social media archives, image-sharing platforms, and event photography sites. The accuracy is sufficient to identify individuals across a span of years and across substantial changes in appearance.
Specific things to know
PimEyes’ regulatory record includes a 2022 statement from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, a 2024 investigation by the French CNIL, and ongoing GDPR enforcement actions in multiple EU member states. The company has implemented some compliance measures, including a removal request process and opt-out mechanisms, but enforcement has consistently focused on whether these measures are sufficient under European data protection law. The 2023 investigation by Surfshark documented continued matches against opted-out individuals.
Change today
If you have ever posted a face photograph online, you are plausibly indexed in PimEyes. The operational answer for individuals is to use the PimEyes opt-out process, which removes specific images from search results, and to set photo posting going forward as a deliberate decision rather than a default. For journalists working under pseudonyms, the structural concern is that PimEyes can link a pseudonymous current identity to past photos that were posted under a different name, breaking compartmentation that the journalist may have considered intact.
Related articles
See our coverage of public-internet face search engines, the European GDPR enforcement record on biometric processing, and the operational defences for individuals seeking to maintain compartmentation between personae.