One photo can belong to many people.

Why we exist

A face online travels much further than the person it belongs to. A profile on a dating app, a photo in a message, a picture from someone you have never met — any of them can belong to somebody else. Fake profiles, catfishing and romance scams run, in large part, on stolen photos.

detsherlock exists to answer one clear question: where else, and as whom, does this face appear on the internet? Knowing that lets you decide for yourself whether the person you are talking to is real.

What we do

We take the face in the photo you upload and search public web pages for images containing the same face. The result is the addresses of the pages where it appears, with small previews.

To be honest about it: results are ranked by similarity, not identity. A high score means two images look very alike — not proof that they are the same person. Coverage is partial, too; a face that does not show up may simply not be indexed anywhere. Treat a report as a lead toward your own judgement, not as proof of anything on its own.

Privacy is the point, not a footnote

Your photo does not leave our servers until you pay. Whether the picture even contains a face is worked out in your own browser. When you run a search, the photo goes to the third-party provider that operates the face-matching index; we will tell you who they are on request.

We do not sell your data and we never add your photo to any index. You can delete your photo and report at any time — deleting removes the photo from disk and the report from the database. A face photo is biometric data, special-category under GDPR and KVKK, and we process it only on the explicit consent you give by uploading it.

Responsible use

detsherlock is for verifying someone you are talking to online, finding where your own photos have been published, or research you are legally entitled to carry out.

It is not for stalking, harassing or surveilling anyone; not for searching a minor's face; and not for decisions about employment, housing or credit. This is not a background-check or consumer-reporting service. We log every search and close accounts that cross these lines.

Trust and payment

Payments run through Stripe; your card details go straight to Stripe and never reach our servers. Your searches and reports are private — our advertising and measurement tools never see your photo, your results, or even the address of your search and report pages.

Contact

A question, a data request, or a search that failed on our side? Write to [email protected]. We will re-run a failed search at no cost or refund it.