When Someone Else's Mugshot Shows Up for Your Name

First, take a breath

Seeing a mugshot next to your name in search results is unsettling, even when you know it is not you. You may worry that a recruiter, landlord, or date will see it and assume the worst. That worry is understandable, but the situation is often more manageable than it feels. Booking photos show a face, and that face is not yours. Most people who look closely will see the difference.

Your job is to help them look closely, and to fix any real errors where your details have been mixed in.

What you can and cannot remove

A booking photo of someone else is information about that person. In most cases, you do not have standing to demand its removal, and Google will not remove it simply because the person shares your name.

That said, several things are worth knowing:

Mugshot sites that charge for removal. Google has a policy for removing results from sites with exploitative removal practices, meaning sites that require payment to remove content. Google's help page says it may remove such results about you. This is designed for the person in the listing, but it is useful to know the landscape. Several states also have laws that limit charging fees to remove booking photos.

Never pay to remove a namesake's photo. Paying a mugshot site to take down someone else's photo is not a good use of money, may not be permitted by the site's own process, and does not stop the photo from appearing elsewhere.

The person in the photo has options. If your namesake has had charges dropped or records sealed, they may be able to get the photo removed. That is their process, not yours. Our guide to getting a mugshot taken down covers it if you are ever helping a relative or friend.

When a site has mixed in your details

Sometimes a mugshot or arrest listing does not just share your name. It includes something that is actually about you, such as:

This usually happens on sites that combine booking records with people-search data. If a listing mixes your details into another person's arrest record, it is wrong in a way that is about you. You have good grounds to ask for a correction.

Contact the site. Look for a contact, correction, or opt-out process. Explain briefly that the listing combines another person's booking record with your personal details, identify the details that are yours, and ask that they be removed. Our guide to writing a correction request has a template.

Use Google's personal information process. If the result shows your home address, phone number, or email, Google's "Results about you" tool and personal information removal policy may let you request that the result be removed from search. See Google results that show your personal information.

Opt out of people-search profiles. If the mixed details come from a people-search site, opting out of that profile can stop it from feeding other listings. See people-search sites that mix you up.

• Your current address or a past address.
• Your employer or job title.
• Your photo, pulled from a social profile.
• Your relatives' names.

Make your own face easy to find

Because a mugshot is a photo, your strongest counter is your own clear photo on pages that rank for your name.

Use the same current photo everywhere. Your LinkedIn, personal website, professional bios, and other profiles should show the same recognizable photo. Our guide to using the same photo and name everywhere explains why consistency matters.

Check Google Images. Search your name in Google Images. If the namesake's mugshot appears, see whether your own photos appear too. Pages you control with your photo and name in clear text help image results reflect you.

Name your photo files sensibly. On your own website, using a descriptive file name and alt text that includes your name version helps search engines understand what the image shows. Google's image SEO documentation covers this.

Make your other details distinct

Combine your photo with details that set you apart from the person in the booking record:

Our guide to signals that help Google tell you apart covers the full setup.

• A distinct name version, such as your middle initial.
• Your city, if different from where the arrest happened.
• Your profession and employer.
• Your timeline, such as school and work history, which often shows a different age.

If you live in the same area

The hardest version is when the namesake was arrested in your own city or county. Location no longer separates you, so other details have to do more work. Lean on your photo, your middle name or initial, your profession, and your age or timeline. If the booking listing shows an age or birth year, that alone often settles it. Make sure your professional pages make your role and history obvious, so anyone comparing the two sees two clearly different people.

What to say if someone asks

Keep it short and calm:

"That's a different person with the same name. You can see it's not my photo, and I'm based in Raleigh. My LinkedIn has my background."

If an employer is involved and the subject comes up before a background check, you can add: "My full legal name and date of birth will be on the background check authorization, so the report should match me correctly." See telling employers "that's not me".

When it shows up in a background report

A mugshot in search results is one thing. A background screening report that lists the namesake's arrest as yours is a consumer report error. You have the right to dispute it with the screening company under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the company generally must reinvestigate within 30 days. See fixing a background check that pulled the wrong person.

Avoid making it worse

Do not post about the namesake. Writing publicly about the other person's arrest can link your name and theirs even more tightly, and can create legal risk if anything you say is untrue.

Do not hide your photo. Removing your photos from profiles leaves the mugshot as the only face associated with your name.

Do not pay removal schemes. Services that promise to remove other people's mugshots are not a legitimate fix. See red flags when paying to remove content.

Keep a record

Save screenshots of the mugshot result, the sites involved, and any correction requests and replies, with dates. If the mix-up ever affects a job or housing decision, this record helps you show what happened.

A quick example

A teacher named Marcus Brown in Raleigh finds that a search for his name shows a booking photo of a man named Marcus Brown arrested in another county. The listing also shows Marcus's current street from a people-search feed. He asks the site to remove his address from the listing, opts out of the people-search profile, and uses Google's personal information request for the result showing his address. He then updates his school bio and LinkedIn with a clear photo and "Marcus A. Brown, Raleigh". When a parent mentions the photo, he replies with one calm sentence. This is an illustrative example.

Common questions

Sources

1. Remove content about you on exploitative sites that try to charge for removal (Google Search Help)
2. Find and remove personal info in Google Search results (Google Search Help)
3. Image SEO best practices (Google Search Central)
4. Mugshot Websites (Georgia Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division)
5. 15 U.S. Code section 1681i (Cornell Legal Information Institute)