Remove porn images and videos from the internet

Getting sexual images and videos of you taken down

By Yair Cohen, Solicitor specialising in internet law. Updated 5 October 2026.

This guide is part of our pornography and adult content law section.

If sexual images or videos of you are online and you want them gone, in most cases we can get them taken down, whether they were leaked by an ex, uploaded by a stranger, or are films you agreed to make years ago and now regret. Usually a letter from us to the website or the host does the job. Court is the fallback for the few who refuse.

We know how frightening it is to find them. You may not have slept properly since, and you may keep checking your phone and wondering who has already seen it. You may feel ashamed, even though you have done nothing wrong. Getting the content down gives you that peace of mind back, and for many of the people we help it is life-changing. This guide explains what we can remove, how we do it, how long it tends to take, and how we stop it coming back.

What we can get taken down

We can go after content wherever it sits: adult tube sites and paid sites, social media and video-sharing platforms, file-sharing services, forums, and the search results that lead people to all of them. Most clients come to us with one of three situations. Someone has shared images of them without consent, in many cases an ex-partner. Films they made when they were younger have spread across dozens of sites they never agreed to. Or someone has found out who they are and is posting their real name next to old clips, to harass them.

The last of these is more common than people expect. Even where a performer used a stage name, someone with a grudge sometimes tracks down the real person and adds their name to video titles and tags, so the link between the two is hard to break. If this is happening to you, it can feel as though someone has taken your past and turned it into a weapon against you. That can amount to harassment under section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and we deal with it alongside the removal work.

What to do first

Before anything comes down, keep a record of it. Save every web address where the content appears, take screenshots that show the address and the date, and note when you first found it. Once a site removes a video, the evidence of where it was can go with it, and that record is what lets us chase copies, show a court what happened, and, where it is a crime, help the police. We know that looking at it again is the last thing you want to do. If it feels like too much, tell us, and we will help you.

Please do not contact the person you think uploaded it, and do not pay anyone who asks for money to take it down. We understand the urge to plead with them, or to pay just to make it stop. A message from you can warn the uploader to move the content or post more, and a payment rarely ends the demands. If someone is threatening you, our guide to sexual blackmail and sextortion explains what to do next. You can report a crime to the police and instruct us at the same time. The police can take months, and the civil route does not have to wait for them.

How we get content removed

We start with letters and formal notices, because they work in most cases and they are fast. Which notice we use depends on the content and the site, and on most matters we use several at once. You do not need to understand any of the law below to get the content down. That is our job, and we explain each step to you as we go.

An intimate image of you is your personal data, and data about a person's sex life is one of the special categories that get extra protection under data protection law. That can give you the right to have it erased under Article 17 of the UK GDPR, and in our experience most sites comply once a solicitor makes the request properly. Where an image was shared without your consent, the person who shared it has committed a criminal offence since 31 January 2024 under section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, unless they reasonably believed you agreed. Sites tend to respond quickly once that is pointed out to them.

Since 29 June 2026 the law gives that a deadline. A platform or search engine that serves UK users has to have systems that take down an intimate image shared without consent within 48 hours of a report from the person it shows, together with copies that are the same or substantially the same, under section 10(3A) of the Online Safety Act 2023. Search engines have the same 48-hour duty for their results. The report can come from you or from us on your behalf. Many people fill in a platform's form and hear nothing back, which can leave you feeling ignored just when you most need help. When we send it, it is made in the form the law expects, so the platform cannot say it never received one. If the image is still up after the deadline, we use the quicker complaints route platforms now have to offer, and we remind them that Ofcom can fine them up to £18 million or 10 per cent of worldwide turnover for ignoring these rules. The duty does not usually reach a film that was first published with your agreement, such as a commercial film you once signed up to, because the law exempts content that was shared publicly with consent before. For those films we rely on the other grounds in this article.

Copyright helps too. If you took the photos or filmed the video yourself, you usually own the copyright under section 11 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and a copyright notice is one of the quickest ways to get a host to act. Where a producer owns the rights to old films, we can sometimes buy those rights back, or register your stage name as a trade mark, so that you control the content from then on.

Search results are handled separately. Google has a removal process for personal sexual content, and we use it so that the content stops showing up against your name even before every site has taken it down. This is sometimes the step that brings the most relief, because a search for your name no longer leads people to it.

If you have found dozens or even hundreds of clips and images, please do not lose heart. We have removed hundreds of images, videos and posts for our clients, and we have built a system that finds, logs, sorts and removes them quickly, so large numbers are something we can handle. When the content is spread over hundreds or thousands of links, our own tool logs every web address, tracks which ones have come down and chases the rest, so you do not have to keep count. If a site refuses, we can ask the court for an order, which is covered in privacy injunction to remove a porn video.

If the site is abroad, or ignores us

Most sites that ignore a takedown request still depend on other companies to stay online, and those companies tend to listen. We write to the company hosting the site, to the registrar that holds its domain name and to the network services in front of it, because their own terms usually forbid this kind of content and they act to protect themselves. Many adult sites are hosted in the United States, where a copyright notice under 17 U.S.C. section 512 is fast and effective if you own the rights in the video.

Where the operator hides behind a privacy service, we can find out who they are. In England, a court can order a company that holds the information to hand it over through a Norwich Pharmacal order. In the United States, the copyright law has its own route for asking a court to make a service provider identify an infringer. In our experience the threat of being named is sometimes enough on its own, and the content comes down before anyone goes to court.

If a video is put back after it was removed, that is usually because someone has sent the site a counter-notice or claimed to own the copyright. We know how crushing that feels when you thought it was over. It is not the end of the matter. We check who really holds the rights and use the grounds a counter-notice cannot answer, such as your privacy and data protection rights.

Will anyone find out?

We keep your name out of it wherever we can. For many people this is the biggest worry of all, that a parent, a partner, an employer or their children will find out. We write to sites and hosts as your solicitors, and we only give a site the details it needs to find and remove the content. Where a partner or anyone else appears in the same footage, we protect them in the same way. If a matter does go to court, the court can let you bring the claim without your name being made public, as it did for our client in GYH v Persons Unknown.

How long it takes

It depends on how far the content has spread. A single video on a site that responds to a solicitor's letter usually comes down quickly. A large back catalogue of old films, copied across dozens of sites over many years, is a bigger job, and a full clean-up of that kind typically takes between 12 and 24 months. Most clients notice the difference much sooner, because the most visible copies and the search results are dealt with first. Each link that comes down is one less thing to worry about, and you can start getting on with your life while we finish the rest.

We do not stop at removal. Once the content is down, we keep watch for new uploads and act on them as they appear, so you are not left checking the internet for yourself late at night, wondering whether it is back.

If you agreed to the filming at the time

Agreeing to a film years ago does not mean it has to stay online forever. If you blame yourself for signing, please try not to. People change and lives move on, and a decision made at a hard time, or when you were very young, should not define the rest of your life. A signed form is not always the end of the matter: pressure, a false promise or not grasping what the paper meant can all undo it, and the site also needs a valid right to show the film. Contract, data protection and privacy law each offer a way in, and we explain them, with the law behind each, in is a release form by porn film actor valid. Wishing now that you had never agreed is covered in regret over porn film, and being pushed into it in the first place in sexual coercion and pornography. If you made the films yourself, or want to buy back the rights to them, our guide to using copyright to get videos of you taken down explains how.

Agreeing to a film years ago does not mean it has to stay online forever.

If the images were shared without your consent

If an ex-partner or anyone else has shared intimate images of you, or is threatening to, you can usually go to the police and bring a civil claim, and you do not have to choose between them. Having something so private shared by someone you trusted is a deep betrayal, and it is not your fault. Our guides on revenge porn legal advice and how to remove revenge porn from the internet set out what to do. If you were filmed without knowing it, our guide for anyone who has been secretly filmed covers your rights and how we get the footage taken down. If the image is not real but generated or doctored, our guide to deepfake intimate images explains your rights. If someone is demanding money or anything else in return for not posting, read sexual blackmail and sextortion straight away.

Where the site sits in North America, our partners among US internet lawyers often know exactly who to call, and our porn lawyers page tells you more.

People we have helped

We have changed names and some details in these stories to protect our clients' privacy.

A woman in her early twenties agreed to make solo content for one website only, and signed a single page she was not given time to read and was not allowed to keep. More than ten years later, she had built a new life as a mother working in a caring profession, when a friend told her the videos were on several of the biggest adult sites. Her own takedown requests failed, and some sites put the videos back after the producer told them he owned the copyright. She thought she had run out of options. We wrote to the companies involved on her privacy and data protection rights and had the search results removed. We then negotiated with the producer and she bought the copyright, which let us send takedown notices to every site still showing the content. For the first time since she signed that single page, the videos were hers to control.

A man had filmed private webcam sessions with his wife years earlier. When copies turned up on free adult sites, he spent more than a year sending takedown requests himself and cleared most of them, but the sites hosted abroad ignored him. Because he had filmed the sessions, the copyright was his. We sent copyright notices, wrote to the companies providing the stubborn sites' network services, traced the owners through domain records and prepared a court application to unmask one operator. Piece by piece, the remaining videos came down, including the copies on mirror sites. After more than a year of fighting it alone, he no longer had to chase them himself.

A young man had made three videos at a hard time in his life, when he needed money to care for his widowed mother. He was promised he would stay anonymous and that the videos would never go online. They went online anyway, and the promise he had relied on was broken. We wrote to the production company and, after more than a year of negotiation, it agreed to take the videos down at source and transfer the copyright to him. With the rights in his hands, we had the videos removed from more than 35 adult sites and hundreds of links disabled, then searched again to catch anything left behind. The videos he had been promised would never go online were, at last, off it.

Two more of our cases are told in full elsewhere: how we unmasked the headteacher behind a site that exploited homeless men, and how a mother won back control of films she made under pressure as a young woman.

Frequently asked questions

Can you remove porn videos of me from the internet?

In most cases, yes. We use data protection, copyright and harassment notices, and the criminal law where the content was shared without consent. Most sites take the content down once a solicitor writes, and a court order is the fallback for those that refuse.

How long does it take to remove porn videos from the internet?

A single video on a site that responds usually comes down quickly. A large collection of old films spread across many sites typically takes between 12 and 24 months to clear fully, although the most visible copies and the search results are dealt with first.

Can you get the videos removed from Google search results?

Yes. Google has a process for removing personal sexual content from its results, and we use it alongside the removal work on the sites themselves, so the content stops appearing against your name.

I signed a release form. Can the video still be removed?

In many cases, yes. A release form can sometimes be challenged, and the website showing the film also needs a valid right to publish it. We start by asking the publisher to show that right, and many cannot.

How quickly does a platform have to take it down?

Since 29 June 2026, platforms and search engines serving UK users have to have systems that take down an intimate image shared without consent within 48 hours of a proper report from the person it shows, under section 10(3A) of the Online Safety Act 2023. We make the report for you and follow it up. The duty does not usually cover films first published with your agreement, and for those we use the other routes in this article.

Will the person who uploaded it find out I am taking action?

Not necessarily. We usually go to the sites, hosts and search engines first, and we only write to the uploader when that helps your case. If someone is threatening you, we plan the order of the steps so that nothing we do makes things worse.

Can you find out who uploaded it?

In many cases, yes. We trace the operators of sites through domain and hosting records, and a court can order a company that holds the information to hand it over, through a Norwich Pharmacal order in England or the copyright route in the United States.

The video was put back after it was removed. What now?

That usually means someone sent the site a counter-notice or claimed to own the copyright. We check who really owns the rights, and rely on your privacy and data protection rights, which a counter-notice cannot answer.

What stops the videos coming back?

Once the content is down, we keep watch for new uploads and act on them as they appear, so you do not have to keep looking. Where it fits the case, we also take control of the rights in the films, so that we can stop new copies at source.