Why Archive Sites Refuse to Delete Expunged Mugshots

August 13, 2025 Legal Tips

Imagine clearing your name after a wrongful arrest, only to find your mugshot still sitting on an archive site. Even after a court expunges the record, the image appears in search results like a permanent link to your past. For many, it’s not just an old photo — it’s a roadblock to jobs, housing, and peace of mind.

These mugshots often live on in web archives, preserved through snapshots, cached pages, and archived versions that refuse to disappear. The persistence raises a clear question: why do archive sites, internet archives, and even open source projects hold on to expunged content, despite requests to delete it?

What Are Archive Sites?

Archive sites are platforms that save and store web content from various sources. They capture webpages, images, videos, and related data for long-term storage. Popular examples include the Wayback Machine and other archives run by libraries, research institutions, and open source projects.

Their primary focus is to preserve history and provide a helpful resource for users who want to explore the evolution of websites and online content. Archived content might include broken links, old articles, personal pages, and snapshots of websites as they appeared on a specific date. For researchers, publishers, developers, marketers, and businesses, this is a powerful tool — it provides access to information that would otherwise be lost.

However, when the archived page contains a mugshot from a now-expunged arrest, that “preservation” can become a personal and professional liability. The presence of such sensitive content on archive sites can continue to affect individuals long after their legal situation has been resolved.

Why Archive Sites Keep Expunged Mugshots

Archive sites refuse to delete mugshots for several reasons:

1. Public record stance – Many archive sites treat mugshots as public records that should remain accessible, regardless of later legal changes or expungements.
2. Historical integrity – These sites see their role as preserving data exactly as it appeared at the time, without altering archived versions or redirecting users away from original content.
3. Jurisdictional limits – Archive sites may be hosted in countries where there is no legal obligation to honor expungement requests, limiting their ability to remove content.
4. Operational autonomy – Archive sites operate independently of search engines and other platforms, making their own decisions about what content to keep or remove.

For these sites, removing one page could mean altering the historical record — something they avoid, even when it affects someone’s reputation or privacy.

The Role of Data Brokers and SEO Scrapers

Data brokers exacerbate the problem by scraping archived content, webpages, and search results, then republishing that data across multiple websites. An expunged mugshot in one archive can spread to dozens of other sites, each creating its own snapshot or permanent link.

SEO scrapers also capture archived content to generate backlink opportunities, further increasing the visibility of outdated mugshots. Once the data is out there, removal becomes a game of whack-a-mole. Even if you get one site to delete the image, copies remain on others, continuing to appear in search results.

Legal and Ethical Tensions Around Expunged Mugshots

Legal Landscape

Expungement laws vary widely by state and country. In some jurisdictions, you can request the removal of a mugshot from official public records. However, there is no universal law that forces archive sites to delete content from their web archives or remove it from archived pages.

Archive operators often rely on the First Amendment or similar free speech protections. As long as the mugshot was accurate at the time it was published, they see no legal obligation to remove it later. This legal stance makes it difficult for individuals to fully erase their digital footprints.

Ethical Questions

Ethically, the issue is more complex. Keeping an outdated mugshot available online can cause long-term harm to a person’s life, affecting employment, housing, and social relationships. Critics argue that archive sites should implement processes to address privacy and rehabilitation concerns, such as offering removal or redaction options.

Supporters of archival integrity counter that editing archived versions opens the door to rewriting history and undermines the purpose of preserving the internet’s past. Finding a balance between these competing interests remains an ongoing challenge.

How Archived Mugshots Spread Across the Web

Even if the original site removes a mugshot, archived versions may live on in:

• Wayback Machine snapshots
• Other archives run by universities, libraries, or open source projects
• Data broker websites that republish the content for profit
• SEO scrapers looking for backlink opportunities
• Personal blogs and forums that copied the original article

Each copy can generate new search results and maintain the visibility of the mugshot, making it difficult for individuals to control their online presence fully.

What You Can Do to Remove Expunged Mugshots

Removing an expunged mugshot from archive sites is challenging but not always impossible. Here are steps you can take:

1. Contact the archive site – Provide legal documentation of the expungement and formally request removal or deindexing of the content.
2. Address data brokers – Submit removal requests to data broker websites or work with a professional service experienced in dealing with these companies.
3. Request deindexing from search engines – Ask search engines to remove the archived link from search results, even if the content remains on archive sites.
4. Create positive content – Publish updated articles, videos, and images to push the archived mugshot down in search rankings and improve your online reputation.
5. Monitor regularly – Use monitoring tools to track mentions of your name and identify new copies of the mugshot as they appear.

In some cases, archive sites may still refuse to remove content. When that happens, legal action or professional online reputation management services may be necessary to address the issue.

The Bigger Picture: Balancing Preservation and Privacy

Archive sites, data brokers, and search engines form part of a complex ecosystem. The ability to capture, save, and access archived content is valuable for research, journalism, transparency, and preserving digital history. However, when these same features trap someone in a past they’ve legally moved on from, the system becomes a barrier to rehabilitation and personal privacy.

Balancing public record preservation with individual rights is an ongoing debate. While archive sites focus on maintaining historical accuracy and security of archived data, there is a growing call for more nuanced policies that consider the future impact on affected individuals.

For now, the scales often tip against the individual, but awareness and advocacy may help shape more balanced approaches in the future.