In 2025, reverse image search barely works.
Not because the tech broke, but because mainstream engines now withhold results to comply with stricter privacy interpretations. Faces, license plates, geotagged locations, even building entrances: if an image might contain something “sensitive,” Google and Bing often return nothing. Even when the source is fully public (a company website, a conference slide, a GitHub profile).
Whether this is “good” privacy or overcompliance isn’t for us to judge. But the effect is real: publicly available visual data is disappearing from search results.
For OSINT, that’s a problem. You can’t verify identities, spot impersonation, or trace digital footprints if the first step, finding where an image appears online, fails by design.
Luckily, tools like LENSO.AI doesn’t have that constraint.
It indexes what’s publicly visible, regardless of whether it shows a face, a street view, or a vehicle plate. No redaction logic. Just raw, unfiltered matches from sources that still exist, but are now invisible to Google.
In a recent test, a profile photo from a suspicious account returned zero results on Google. On LENSO.AI? Three hits: a defunct social profile, a tech forum post, and a cached image on an open-source project’s media folder. All public. All missed by mainstream search.
The workflow is simple:
1. Upload the image.
2. Get matches based on facial geometry – not just pixel hashing.
3. Correlate usernames, bios, or metadata.
No judgment. No policy overrides. Just visibility.
Google’s tool is now optimized for compliance. LENSO.AI is still optimized for discovery.
If your work depends on seeing what’s actually out there (and not what a search engine decides you’re allowed to see) know which one to reach for.
→ lenso.ai
