Someone Posted My Picture Without Permission: How to Get It Taken Down

The order to work in

1. Save the link and a screenshot. You will need the link for every report, and the screenshot if the post is edited later.
2. Ask the person to take it down. This is the fastest route when you know them. A message to copy is below.
3. Remove your tag. It takes the post off your own profile today while the rest plays out.
4. Report it under the rule it breaks. The reason you choose decides whether anything happens.
5. Use copyright if you took the photo. A selfie or a picture from your own camera gives you a stronger claim.

This guide is general information for adults in the United States. It is not legal advice. The platform steps were checked against each company’s own help pages on October 12, 2026.

What the platforms will and will not remove

Start with the hard part, because it saves you a wasted report. For an adult in the United States, “I did not agree to this photo” is usually not enough for a platform to act.

• Instagram says it removes posts reported as unauthorized “if this is required by relevant privacy laws in your country” (Instagram Help Center).
• Meta’s privacy policy, which covers Facebook and Instagram, lists imagery of an adult as removable when it is reported “by the adult from outside the United States” and “applicable law may provide rights to removal” (Meta Transparency Center).

So in the US the photo comes down when it breaks another rule. These are the ones that work:

• It is intimate or sexual, whether real or fake.
• It is part of bullying or harassment.
• It shows private details such as your home address, phone number or an ID.
• It is on an account pretending to be you.
• You own the copyright, because you took it.

Each of those has its own report, and the table further down matches your situation to the right one.

Ask first: a message to copy

Instagram’s own advice is to talk to the person before you report. Most people post a group photo without thinking about who is in it, and a short message that does not accuse them usually works.

• Give them a day. People do not always see messages straight away.
• Offer the easy option. Cropping you out or changing who can see the post is often easier for them to agree to than deleting it.
• Skip this step if the person is an ex, a stranger, or someone who is harassing you. Go straight to the report and do not reply to them.

Remove your tag

A tag is what puts the post on your profile and in front of your own friends. You can remove it yourself, without the other person’s help.

• Instagram: open the post, tap your name, open the menu, then choose “Remove Me from Post” on iPhone or “Remove Tag” on Android, and confirm (Instagram Help Center).
• Facebook: go to the photo, click Options in the top right, select Remove tag, then OK (Facebook Help Center).

Removing a tag does not remove the photo. Facebook says the post “is still visible to the audience it’s shared with.” Treat this as a first step while you work on the rest.

Instagram

• Report the post: tap Options in the top right of the post, select Report, and follow the steps (Instagram Help Center).
• Report a privacy violation: the “report it to us” link on Instagram’s Exposed Private Information page opens the privacy form. Instagram acts on it when the content involves you.
• No account, or you are blocked: Instagram says to ask a friend with an account to report it for you, and to include links and screenshots.

Instagram states that “your report is anonymous, except if you’re reporting an intellectual property infringement.” The account you report is not told who reported it.

Facebook

• Report the photo: open it, open the menu on the post, and choose the report option.
• Privacy form: Facebook has a photo removal request for privacy violations. It asks for the link to the photo.
• You have to send it yourself. Facebook asks the person whose privacy is affected to fill in the form, so a friend cannot do this one for you.
• A fake profile using your photos is a different report. Facebook lets you report an impersonating profile or Page even without an account (Facebook Help Center).

TikTok

TikTok’s help center gives these steps:

• In the app: go to the post and tap the Share button, or press and hold the post. Tap Report and select a reason. Tap Submit.
• In a browser: go to the video and hover over the More options button at the top. Click Report and select a reason. Click Submit.

TikTok reviews reports against its Community Guidelines, so choose the reason closest to what is wrong: harassment, a privacy problem, or an account pretending to be you.

Pick the report that fits

If you took the photo, you hold a stronger card

Copyright belongs to the person who pressed the button. The US Copyright Office says “the author and initial copyright owner of a photograph is the person who ‘shoots’ or ‘takes’ the photo” (US Copyright Office). Being in the picture does not make it yours.

The same rule helps you when you are the one who took it. A selfie, or a picture taken on your camera by you, is yours. If someone reposts it:

• Use the platform’s copyright form, listed under intellectual property in each report menu.
• The platform must respond. Under section 512 of the copyright law, a service that receives a valid notice “must act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the infringing material” (US Copyright Office).
• Your name is shared. A copyright report is the one kind Instagram does not keep anonymous.
• Only claim it if it is true. The notice includes a statement that the information in it is accurate.

If the report is rejected

1. Report again under a more accurate reason, and add context the reviewer cannot see from the picture alone, such as earlier messages from the same person.
2. Ask a mutual friend to speak to them. A request from someone they know often lands better than one from you.
3. Limit what the post is attached to. Remove your tag, and change your settings so that tags need your approval before they appear on your profile.
4. Clear the search results once it is down. When the post is deleted, Google can keep showing the old image for a while. Its outdated content tool asks Google to refresh the result.

When to talk to a lawyer

• Your face is used to sell something. The right of publicity “prevents the unauthorized commercial use of an individual’s name, likeness, or other recognizable aspects of one’s persona,” and it is mostly a matter of state law (Cornell Legal Information Institute).
• The caption states something false about you that damages your reputation.
• It is part of stalking or repeated harassment, where a protective order may apply.

Common doubts

“Is it illegal to post my picture without permission?”

For an ordinary photo in the US, usually not. It becomes a legal matter when the image is intimate, when your likeness is used commercially, when you own the copyright, or when the post is part of harassment. The rules differ by state, so treat this as a starting point and ask a lawyer about your own case.

“Will they know I reported them?”

On Instagram, no, unless it is a copyright report. Instagram says the account you report “won’t see who reported them.” Bear in mind that if only one person objected to the photo, they may guess.

“It was deleted. Is it gone?”

From that account, yes. Copies are another matter. Anyone who saved or re-shared it still has it, and a public post can be picked up by face-search engines, which keep finding your face after the original is deleted.

“Can FacePrivacy do this part for me?”

These reports have to come from you, because the platforms ask the person in the photo to send them. What we take off your plate is the next part: the face-search engines that copy public photos and let a stranger find you from a single picture.

“What does that cost?”

US$9.99 a month, or US$7.99 a month billed annually. Cancel from your dashboard whenever you like. Web payments made through Stripe carry a 30-day money-back guarantee.