How to remove your info from data brokers
Most people don’t understand how much personal information is freely available on data brokers’ websites. For example, search for your name on Spokeo.com. You might find a shocking amount of personal information in the search results, including names of your family members.
Data brokers get this personal information from public records, which they then aggregate and display on their sites. (The data includes arrest records and mugshots of people later found innocent, as reported by Vice.) Usually a data broker website provides a small amount of information for free, while more detailed personal info is available for pay. At best, it’s creepy; at worst, it enables stalkers or other malicious actors to harm you through the use of this data.
The good news is that you can contact the data brokers to request the removal of your info. But there are many data brokers out there, and it’s a hassle to contact each one and follow up to verify that your info has been removed.
Data brokers to contact
These are the main data brokers to start with:
Others: Acxiom, Infotracer, Lexis Nexis, TruePeopleSearch, Radaris, BeenVerified.
Other resources
- Someone Scraped Massive Bank of Personal Data Used by Private Investigators (Motherboard, Jan 13, 2022): TransUnion’s database got scraped and shared online.
- Big Ass Data Broker Opt Out List, maintained by Yael Grauer: very helpful. A long list of data brokers, as well as other suggestions for preventing identity theft.
- Here’s a Long List of Data Broker Sites and How to Opt-Out of Them (by Yael Grauer in Vice Motherboard, March 27, 2018): “How to get off of people search sites like Pipl, Spokeo, and WhitePages.”
- Personal Data Removal Workbook (August 2021) by Michael Bazzell from IntelTechniques.com: this is a PDF worksheet listing the names of several data brokers - part of his book Extreme Privacy. Bazzell also hosts a podcast: The Privacy, Security, & OSINT Show.
