Reverse image search tools compare the pixel data of an uploaded image against an index of known images. This works well when a scammer uses a photo copied directly from somewhere else without any editing. It fails as soon as the photo has been cropped, resized, run through a filter, or re-photographed off a screen, all common tactics for photos pulled from a stolen social media account. A biometric face scan instead reads the underlying geometry of the face, distances between features, proportions, and structure, which remains stable across those changes. That is why it can surface a match that a pixel-based tool misses entirely.

What to do

  1. Try a standard reverse image search firstIt is free and takes a few seconds. It catches the simplest cases of a directly copied photo.
  2. Run a biometric scan for anything reverse search missesScanErase checks the face against 2.4 billion embeddings across 200+ platforms, including social media.
  3. Compare what each method findsA biometric scan often surfaces older or edited copies of the same photo that reverse search does not.
  4. Unlock your full report for $15See every match, unblurred, with the platform, URL, and a confidence score for each.