Florida’s Mugshot Law:
Statute § 901.43 Explained

Florida Statute § 901.43, strengthened by the Legislature in 2021 (effective October 1, 2021), targets the mugshot-extortion business model directly. It applies to any person or entity that publishes Florida arrest booking photographs for a commercial purpose — the websites that scrape sheriff's office records and then solicit "removal fees."

Under the statute, you may send a written demand to remove your booking photo. The publisher then has 10 days from receipt to take it down, without charge.

What makes § 901.43 unusual among state mugshot laws is its enforcement mechanism:

• A site that misses the 10-day deadline faces a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per day of continued publication.
• A site that removes the photo and later republishes it faces up to $5,000 per day.
• In either case, the site is also liable for your reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs — meaning enforcement does not have to come out of your pocket.

This is the point most people miss: § 901.43 does not require that your charges were dropped, that you were acquitted, or that your record was sealed or expunged. The right to demand removal from commercial mugshot sites belongs to anyone whose booking photo is published for a commercial purpose — including people who were convicted. Your case outcome affects other tools (like expungement), but not this one.

The statute requires the demand to be made in a specific way, and mugshot sites routinely ignore demands that get the details wrong. A valid demand must:

• 1Be in writing and sent by registered mail to the registered agent of the person or entity publishing the photo;
• 2Include proof of your identity confirming you are the person in the photograph;
• 3Identify the specific photograph — the URL, booking number, or equivalent identifying information.

Locating a shell company's registered agent, perfecting service, and documenting the 10-day clock is exactly the kind of procedural work attorneys do daily — and exactly where DIY demands tend to die quietly.

The statute is aimed at commercial mugshot publishers. It does not apply to law enforcement agencies publishing booking photos as part of their official functions, government public-records portals, or legitimate news organizations reporting on arrests. For those, different tools apply — government records can be addressed through sealing or expungement, and news outlets through negotiated unpublishing. See our guide to removing mugshots from Google for how each category is handled in search results.

As a Florida attorney, I prepare statutory demands that comply with every formal requirement, serve them on the correct registered agents, and calendar the 10-day deadline. When sites comply — most do — your photo comes down free of charge. When they don't, the statute's daily penalties and fee-shifting provision give me real leverage to escalate at no additional cost to you. Combined with complete Florida mugshot removal across all sites and search engines, the result is a clean name search — permanently.