Glossary · Search
Public web
The public web is the part of the internet that any visitor can load without logging in: news sites, blogs, forums, company pages, public galleries and profile pages that a platform exposes to everyone. Face search engines index only this part. Private accounts, direct messages, closed groups and anything behind a password are outside it, which sets the hard limit on what any search can find.
Updated November 6, 2026 · 2 min read
What counts as public?
A page is public when a crawler with no account can fetch it. That includes most of the open web and a thin slice of social platforms: profile pages set to public, posts that platforms expose to logged-out visitors, and embeds and reposts on other sites. A photo copied from a private account to a public forum becomes public at the forum, even though the original is not.
Where is the line on each platform?
| Platform | Reachable by a crawler | Not reachable |
|---|---|---|
| Some public profile pages and embedded posts | Private accounts, stories, DMs, most feeds behind the login wall | |
| Public pages and some public profile fragments | Friends-only posts, groups, Messenger | |
| X | Public posts via limited logged-out views | Protected accounts, DMs |
| Public profile view | Logged-in detail | |
| Dating apps | Nothing; profiles live inside the app | Everything |
| WhatsApp and Telegram | Public Telegram channel previews | Chats, groups, profile photos in the app |
| News, blogs, forums, galleries | Almost all | Paywalled or members-only areas |
Why does it matter for a face search?
A missing result means "not on a public page we crawled", nothing more. A dating photo that returns no match may simply never have left the app. Engines that claim to search social media are describing public fragments and reposts, not accounts. The index entry explains what makes it into the store.
Does public mean free to use?
No. A face on a public page is still personal data under the GDPR and biometric data once an embedding is made; being public does not waive those protections, a point regulators made in the Clearview decisions. Copyright also persists: a public photo belongs to whoever took it. Public means reachable, not consented.
Questions
Can a face search engine see my private Instagram?
No. Private accounts need a login; crawlers do not log in. Public profiles and reposts elsewhere can be reached.
If my photo is public, can anyone use it?
Reachable is not the same as permitted. Data-protection and copyright law still apply to a public photo.
Sources
- 1.Google Search Central, How Search works (checked November 6, 2026)
- 2.ICO, What is personal data? (checked November 6, 2026)
Entry reviewed November 6, 2026. Found an error? Tell us.
Related entries
- Term Crawler Crawler defined: the program that fetches public web pages and images for indexing, how robots rules and logins limit it, and what that means for coverage.
- Term Index (face search) Index defined for face search: the stored set of face embeddings and source URLs built from crawled public pages, how it is refreshed, and why its scope matters.
- Term Source page Source page defined: the web page where a face search found a matching image, why it is the actionable part of a result, and how engines differ in showing it.
- Law General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and biometric data GDPR and face search: Article 9 biometric data, the household exemption, territorial reach under Article 3(2), fines up to 4%, and the Clearview and PimEyes cases.
- Concept Building a web-scale face index How face search engines crawl the public web, store billions of embeddings for nearest-neighbour lookup, keep the index fresh, and decide what counts as public.
Cite this entry
FaceSearch Wiki editors. "Public web". FaceSearch Wiki, updated November 6, 2026. https://facesearch.wiki/glossary/public-web/