Privacy Violations and Non-Consensual Image Abuse

Federal copyright law gives anyone whose image or work is used without permission a real tool: a notice sent to the hosting company or internet service provider, which is then obligated to take the infringing material down or risk losing its own legal protection. For victims working to stop the continued distribution of sexualized images taken of them without consent, a copyright takedown notice is often the fastest way to reclaim some measure of control.

What victims do not agree to is what happens next — providers like Google have routinely forwarded copies of these notices, often including identifying details and the very link the victim fought to have removed, to the Lumen Database, a public, searchable archive maintained for research purposes. Spain's data protection authority fined Google €10 million for doing exactly this with people's removal requests, finding that passing along a person's identifying information without consent undermined the very protection they had sought.

Lex Grayner Law represents individuals harmed by this systemic practice — where a copyright notice submitted in good faith to stop the distribution of a sexualized image is instead archived and re-exposed by the very companies legally obligated to take it down. Holding these platforms accountable means litigating at the intersection of copyright law and privacy rights, and confronting a corporate practice that treats a survivor's most sensitive information as research data rather than as the harm it is.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) gives consumers rights over their personal data and a path to sue when companies fail to protect it. Lexa helps clients hold technology companies accountable for treating their personal information as a product rather than a right.