Launching during Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the new ImageShield combines a free educational assessment, personalized Likeness Health Score℠ and ongoing monitoring to help people understand and strengthen their likeness protection
FAIRFAX, Va., Oct. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Cybersecurity has traditionally focused on protecting passwords, accounts and financial information. But as artificial intelligence makes it easier to copy, alter and misuse a person's image, cybersecurity has a new face: yours.
ImageShield today announced the launch of its newly updated platform, built on the belief that likeness protection should become a routine part of personal cybersecurity. The platform helps people understand their potential exposure, monitor where their face may appear online, and take informed action when potential misuse is identified.
At the center of the new experience is Likeness Health, a model for understanding and strengthening how the representation of a person's face in photographs or other media is protected in an AI-driven world. To help users understand their risk of likeness abuse, ImageShield's new experience includes a brief assessment quiz that generates a personalized Likeness Health Score, to help users understand their potential exposure and identify practical steps to strengthen their protection over time.
"Cybersecurity has spent decades protecting what we know and what we own. AI means we now also have to protect who we are," said Michael Gallagher, founder and CEO of ImageShield. "Your face belongs to you, but most people have no practical way to understand where it may be appearing or how exposed it could be to misuse. Our Likeness Health Score is intended to solve that by offering a quick way for users to understand their risk and take steps to become better protected."
The company's Likeness Health Score is calculated using an evidence-based scoring methodology that combines users' self-reported information with insights from published research and official reports. The methodology is designed to evolve as new evidence emerges and also reflects users' protective activity in the app, such as acknowledging compliance with safety recommendations and reviewing and resolving likeness detection reports.
"Awareness without ongoing protection is not enough," Gallagher said. "Abusive content can be removed from public view and still exist elsewhere, and it can be copied, saved and published again. That is why likeness protection requires continued vigilance rather than a single search or takedown."
Because threats and personal circumstances change, Likeness Health is not intended to be a one-time assessment. Users can adopt recommended practices, review new reports and add recently shared photographs to their monitoring over time.
Understanding Likeness Health
AI has transformed the human face into a valuable and increasingly vulnerable form of personal data. Photographs and videos shared for ordinary purposes can be copied, manipulated, used for impersonation or placed into contexts the subject never created or authorized.
ImageShield research* found that more than one in five Americans surveyed (22%) reported experiencing some form of photo exploitation. Among women ages 18–30 surveyed, that figure rose to nearly one in four (24%).
ImageShield defines Likeness Health through three essential capabilities:
- Awareness: Understanding the behaviors and circumstances that can increase exposure to likeness misuse.
- Monitoring: Maintaining ongoing visibility into where a person's face may be appearing online within the sources the service that service searches, including the entire public web and millions of images on platforms and sites that are know for their distribution of abusive imagery.
- Action: Giving people information, recommendations and direct takedown tools to respond to potential misuse on the top platforms where 70% of the world's images are shared.
Focus on privacy and data protection
ImageShield's patented*, consent-based facial verification system is in compliance with the strictest U.S. Federal and State and international privacy, biometric, and data protection laws. The platform includes two-factor authentication by default and provides a "Forget Me" control for expediting deletion of account data. Company personnel have limited access to users' account data, photographs, and biometric information. The company's privacy and data management practices have been reviewed and approved by TrustArc.
The new ImageShield experience includes:
- A personalized Likeness Health Score℠: a personalized assessment informed by self-reported answers and published evidence that evolves as new evidence emerges and the user interacts with and reports to the app.
- Verified Facial Search: ImageShield's patented technology uses a live selfie to verify a user's identity and checks that the verified face appears in submitted photographs before those images are searched for. This safeguard is designed to prevent unauthorized monitoring of another person's likeness. The same facial signature is then used to search for the user's likeness in monitored third-party content.
- 24/7 likeness monitoring: ImageShield searches for and identifies potential appearances of a user's likeness online.
- Likeness reporting: ImageShield's likeness detection system delivers regular reports to users, which they can review and classify as acceptable, false positive, or misuse.
- Response guidance and tools: Direct links to take-down forms on the social media platforms and websites on which more than 70% of the world's photos are shared, and guidance on how to request takedowns on other sites.
- Individual recommendations: Practical actions users can take to strengthen their Likeness Health and raise their Likeness Health Scores.
Throughout Cybersecurity Awareness Month, ImageShield is publishing educational resources on likeness misuse, consent and practical protective steps, encouraging consumers to ask: Is my likeness safe?
The likeness health quiz, initial and ongoing Likeness Health Score, complete Likeness Health Report℠ with updated recommendations, reports of new threats, and personal protection news, are available in the updated ImageShield app, available for Android and iOS devices, for free. The app's likeness monitoring and reporting tools are available for individuals at $4.99 per month, or $49 per year, or for a household of up to five members at $7.99 per month, or $79 per year.
*U.S. Patent No. 12,602,950
About ImageShield
ImageShield is a consumer likeness protection service that helps people understand their potential exposure, monitor where their face may appear online, and take informed action when potential misuse is discovered. Through its Likeness Health framework, identity-verified image searches, ongoing monitoring and actionable guidance, ImageShield is working to establish a new standard for personal protection in the age of artificial intelligence.
For more information, visit ImageShield.com.
Media Contact
Alana Elias Kornfeld, ImageShield®, 1 5163693132, [email protected], https://imageshield.com
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