How to use Google’s tool to remove photos of minors from search results?

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Melissa Velasquez Loaiza

(Spanish CNN) – Google has unveiled a tool for minors or their parents to delete photos of them in browser search results.

The company said Wednesday that it is rolling out a tool that allows parents and children under the age of 18 to request that photos be removed from search results or no longer appear as thumbnails in a search query.

While Google previously offered people ways to request the removal of personal information and photos that fell into categories such as “explicit non-consensual identification” or “financial, medical and national identification,” it is now extending it to images of children under 18. .

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“We know that children and teens face some unique challenges online, especially when a photo of them is unexpectedly available on the Internet,” the company said in the blog post. “We believe this change will help young people have more control over their fingerprints and where their images can be found in Search.”

Even if the images don’t appear in search results, they won’t be removed from the website they appear on, Google warned.

“While we can prevent an image from appearing in our search results, we cannot remove it from the websites that host it. For this reason, we recommend that you contact the site’s webmaster and ask them to remove the content, “Google said on its website.

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This is how the tool to delete photos of minors works

Who can apply?

To initiate the withdrawal procedure, the request must be made by the minor himself, by a legal guardian or by an authorized representative. “Authorized representatives will need to explain how they have the power to act on your behalf,” says Google.

What is the process?

1. You must start the petition in an online form from Google.

2. Identify the URL of the image: in the form you must enter the URL that hosts the image, not the URL of the website where it appears. To identify the Internet address hosting the image, it must start with https://images.app.goo.gl/ or https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl, according to Google.

On this page, you can learn how to get the image URL from a computer, Android device or iPhone or iPad.

3. An “identifiable person who is currently under 18” must appear visibly in the image. Google says it also removes images from its search engine when “the tragic situation” occurs that a minor died before reaching the age of 18.

What happens after submitting the form?

Once the form is filled out, Google will send you an automatic confirmation to your email to confirm that they have received the request.

If it meets the aforementioned requirements, Google will collect more information if it needs it, and “in some cases,” it says, they may ask you for more information in reference to the photo.

“If the question does not include the information necessary to evaluate it (for example, if the URLs are missing), we will share specific instructions with you and ask you to resubmit the question,” Google says on its blog.

After studying each case, Google will make a decision, and if it determines that it’s an image that you can remove, according to its policy, the photo in question will disappear from search results, not from the website hosting it.

If the request does not meet the requirements and is rejected, Google will inform you of the reasons.

“If your application is rejected and you have other materials to support your case, you can resubmit it,” the company said on its blog.

– With information from Murphy Kelly of CNN Business.

The-CNN-Wire ™ and © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia company. All rights reserved.

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