If you want to be a witness, it’s important to prepare yourself and ask yourself several questions before speaking publicly. What message do you want to convey ? How do you want the media to speak about you ? What should remain private ? How can you best protect your children and loved ones ? You are free to set any limits you want concerning your private life and refuse to answer certain question.

If you believe that images harmful to your private life or the private life of your loved ones (e.g. photos of a terrorist attack), you can take action. Depending on the content available in internet research engines, on social media or disseminated by the press, various actions are possible. In all cases, a lawyer or an NGO can help you.

Article 9 of France’s civil code (Code civil) stipulates that everyone has the right of respect to his/her private life.

Article 226-1 of the criminal code (Code pénal) makes violating the intimate private life of others by posing, recording or transmitting a persons image in private setting without their consent a crime punishable by a year of imprisonment and €45,000 fine.

Article 226-8 of the criminal code makes publishing an edited image of a person without their consent, if the editing is not obvious or is not mentioned, regardless of the publishing medium, is punishable by a year of imprisonment and a €15,000 fine.

Article 35 quarter of the law of 29 July 1881 amended, on the freedom of the press, makes publishing by any and all means a reproduction of the circumstances of a crime or offense that seriously harms the dignity of a victim and without the victim’s consent is punishable by a €15,000 fine. Please note that this law has a three-month statute of limitation.

Lastly, Article 222-33-3 of the criminal code stipulates that knowingly recording and publishing through any medium images relating to the commission of offenses is considered to be an act of complicity in the willful harm of a person’s integrity. The article is not applicable when the recording or publishing results from the normal exercise of a profession whose aim is to inform the public and is made to provide legal evidence. »

More commonly (but improperly) know as “the right to be forgotten”, this procedure erases internet search-engine results. Content still exists because the legislation varies from country to country, but such content is no longer accessible on French territory. For more information, see the CNIL website, which provides the procedures to follow.

For Google, a form is available at this address: https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_eudpa?product=websearch&hl=en

For Bing, the form is available at this link: https://www.bing.com/webmaster/tools/eu-privacy-request

For Qwant, the form is available at this link: https://help.qwant.com/help/overview/right-to-be-forgotten/

Facebook allows you to flag inappropriate or insulting content.

Instagram is owned by Facebook However, the application has its own rules and user terms and conditions. If you believe a photo has violated your privacy, you can request its removal on the dedicated support page: https://help.instagram.com/contact/504521742987441?helpref=page_content

Twitter is a social network that allows users to send short messages of 140 characters of less along with photos and videos.Twitter stipulates in its terms of service that it can request users who post images of deceased persons to remove them.If you believe that a tweet harms your image, you can request that it be removed via a form available under the concerned content (https://help.twitter.com/en/safety-and-security/sensitive-media):

YouTube is a video-sharing platform owned by Google. Some traditional media use YouTube to disseminate their videos. Internet users also post a lot of content that may be in violation of the law. Google removes videos that violate the law through a manual analysis. User reports are one of the means the company uses to detect offensive or inappropriate videos.A request to remove a video can be made via the more button under each video:

Dailymotion is an online video hosting, sharing and viewing service. It has form available for reporting proscribed content:https://faq.dailymotion.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=136048#new-request