Intimate images posted without consent: what are my options?
If the images are from when you were under 18: use Take It Down from NCMEC. It's for images taken before you turned 18. Don't send or download anything to use it: your file stays on your device and only a digital fingerprint is shared, with participating platforms. Don't send the images to anyone, me included.
Copyright isn't your only route. These routes rest on your consent rather than your ownership, so they can help when you don't hold the copyright. They're free, and you can use them yourself.
The TAKE IT DOWN Act (US)
Public Law 119-12, enacted 19 May 2025. The FTC enforces its removal rules (section 3), effective 19 May 2026. Under section 3, a covered platform must have a process for you, or someone authorized to act for you, to request removal. Your request must be in writing and include:
- your physical or electronic signature, or that of the person acting for you
- an identification of the image, with enough to locate it
- a brief statement of your good-faith belief that it isn't consensual, with relevant information
- how to contact you
After a valid request, the platform must remove it as soon as possible and within 48 hours, and make reasonable efforts to remove known identical copies.
Who's covered: public services that primarily provide a forum for user-generated content, or whose regular business includes publishing nonconsensual intimate depictions. Email and broadband providers are excluded, as are sites that mostly carry preselected content rather than user content, unless they fall into that second group. If a platform doesn't comply, the FTC's guidance says to report it at takeitdown.ftc.gov.
Consent: for the Act's criminal offences, agreeing to create an image doesn't establish consent to publish it, and neither does showing it to someone. Whether selling content affects a removal request is a question for a lawyer, and the copyright route doesn't depend on it.
Google Search
Google's form removes results, not the page. It covers real and fake sexual content of you, but limits consensual content to content not commercialized online or elsewhere. Details in the Google guide.
StopNCII
StopNCII creates a fingerprint of your image on your device, so the image itself isn't uploaded. Participating platforms can use it to find matches. It says it can't remove images from the whole internet, only from its participating partners. NCMEC points to it for images from when you were 18 or older.
How this fits with what I do
My plans list copyright notices to sites, hosts and registrars, plus Google de-indexing and outdated-content filings. The consent-based routes above aren't on that list, so don't assume they're covered: ask me, and we can talk through which routes fit. If someone is threatening to publish images of you, talk to a local lawyer or the police. The Act also makes certain threats a crime.
General information, not legal advice. I'm not a lawyer and Abolita is not a law firm. Checked against the linked sources on 6 November 2026, except the FTC's report page, which wouldn't load beyond a title for my check. The FTC's guidance is what names it.
Quick answers
Do I need to own the copyright to use the TAKE IT DOWN Act?
No. The process is for the identifiable person shown, or someone authorized to act for them. The request rests on the image being published without consent, not on who owns the copyright.
Does it apply outside the US?
It's a US federal law, enforced by the FTC against covered platforms. Other countries have their own rules, so check locally or use the other routes on this page.
Sources
- TAKE IT DOWN Act, Public Law 119-12
- FTC: complying with the TAKE IT DOWN Act
- Google: remove explicit or intimate personal images
- StopNCII: how it works
- NCMEC: Take It Down
Related
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