Privacy Recon

If the idea of your personal information publicly visible to the world alarms you, then just what can you do?  After my initial feeling of panic subsided, I decided on a strategy to remove what I could from the online sources that published our information.

1.  Initial damage assessment:  what personal data is visible on search engines?  I searched our names (“First Last”) and email addresses on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo and documented which sites included the most recent information. Be sure to search all variations of your name including middle names, initials, and former legal names.
2.  Pick off the largest companies:  start with the companies that showed up on the first pages of the searches.   Intelius, InstantCheckmate, MyLife, Radaris, etc… because the smaller companies use that data.
3.  Keep records of the sites you opt out and how you contacted them.  I’m including a spreadsheet I used with this site if you want to use the records I kept for these sites.

I found that most sites allow opting out, but it also almost never works on the first try.  I used the process listed in their privacy policy, then usually had to email or call to have them directly remove the personal data.  This, of course, is by design.  They do not want to remove our information, so they make it as difficult as possible.  I read some complaints on the Better Business Bureau website for some of these companies.  Obviously, the companies do NOT care what their online reputation looks like.

The important thing is not to give up.  If you’re diligent, you can remove 99% of what you find.

© 2019 GR All Rights Reserved