Public-web scope
221B is designed around publicly available pages, profiles, articles, and websites. It is not a private-record lookup product.
About 221B
A public-web reverse face search product for verification and research.
221B helps users upload a face photo and review publicly available source pages where the same face may appear. The intended outcome is not automatic identification. The intended outcome is a better manual review workflow.
Verification-first workflow
The product is meant to help users prioritise candidate pages, then verify those pages manually using names, dates, context, and source credibility.
Research and safety use cases
Core use cases include identity verification, catfish checks, open-source research, and checking for public image misuse.
What users should understand before using it
Reverse face search is different from ordinary reverse image search. The goal is to locate the same person across different photos, not just find exact duplicates of one image.
Because of that, confidence scores should be treated as review signals, not conclusions. Original pages, names, bios, timestamps, and source quality are what determine whether a candidate is meaningful.
For a detailed explanation of how 221B frames search scope, result review, and source interpretation, see the methodology page.
Who and why
221B is published by the 221B Team for public-web verification workflows.
The product and guides are written to help users understand what face search can do well, what it cannot prove, and how to review source pages responsibly.
That means being explicit about scope, public-web limitations, and the fact that confidence scoring should support manual review rather than replace it.