Can I Have My Mugshot Removed from the Internet?

While people laugh at celebrity mugshots and may even peruse local ones for amusement, mugshots can be extremely embarrassing to the individuals portrayed. Quite often, a mugshot is considered public information. However, there are some instances in which a person can have a mugshot removed.

Danger of Mugshots

The primary danger of mugshots is that they imply that the individual portrayed is associated with some criminal act. However, an arrest does not mean that an individual actually committed a crime or was found guilty. Nonetheless, the negative image can damage a person’s professional relationship or be easily found when vetting a candidate for a job.

Public Information

In many states, records associated with an arrest are considered public information or public domain. For this reason, most websites that feature these pictures do not need any actual permission or consent before they post them. Federal mugshots are usually considered public domain and are freely accessible to the public. Some states do have specific laws regarding mugshots, but most mugshots taken by state agencies are as accessible as federal mugshots. Many states simply do not have any laws regarding the use of mugshots or the requirements of websites to remove them.

Ways to Remove Mugshots

There are several ways in which a person can attempt to remove a damaging mugshot from the internet.

Contact Webmaster

The first line of defense for individuals who want to have their mugshot removed is to contact the webmaster for the website directly. The site may have a question or contact page in which you can check into reasons upon which the site will voluntarily remove the mugshot. If the webmaster removes the mugshot, it is actually taken off of the page, as opposed to being suppressed by one search engine.

Contact Google

Since Google is the most popular search engine at the time of publication, individuals may prefer to try to have Google suppress results of the mugshot. Google will remove search results for certain legal reasons. Additionally, it may remove personal information upon request if the information poses certain harm or risk to an individual. However, Google tends not to remove information that is already available to the public.

Use a Removal Service

Certain companies advertise the ability to remove a mugshot. They charge a fee in order to have the mugshot removed. However, many of these companies work directly or indirectly for the website that originally published the mugshot. Therefore, paying the requested may only result in having it removed from a particular website. If the mugshot is public information, it can simply be republished to a different site.

Other companies use special methods of manipulating search engine results so that the mugshot is not found within the top searches.

Expunge Your Record

Another option may be more difficult to accomplish but may yield greater results, which is the process of expunging or sealing your record. This process requires that the crime that you committed fall within the purview of the expungement law, which usually includes minor offenses, minor drug offenses and other non-violent or sexual crimes. Expungement often requires that a certain amount of time has passed since the incident or conviction in which the defendant has not been convicted of any other criminal offenses.

This process usually requires the individual to file a petition with the court in which he or she asks for the arrest record and other records to be expunged or sealed. If the applicant is successful, this individual can send the order of expungement to the website that has published the mugshot. The website’s own rules may state that it will remove mugshots under such situations or the website may do so as a business practice that acknowledges that it would be preferable to remove a negative image of someone who has taken the steps to reduce this negativity.

However, some states do require that the website remove the mugshot when presented with this evidence, such as New York. Additionally, the individual may ask for a court order that mandates that the mugshot be removed.

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Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this publication, it is not intended to provide legal advice as individual situations will differ and should be discussed with an expert and/or lawyer. For specific technical or legal advice on the information provided and related topics, please contact the author.