Is your phone number or address showing up on websites you don't recognize? Or maybe it's old photos or social media posts?
Either way, having your personal data fall into the wrong hands can be a nightmare for your privacy or your reputation, which is why cleaning up your online profile is essential.
It isn't always easy, though. Many different websites hold your personal data, and there aren't enough straightforward ways to remove your personal information from public profiles. At least, not easy ones.
What types of websites collect your personal data?
Online directories, address listing sites, and background check sites are very common. You'll find pages like Whitepages.com, which lists personal information about many people in the United States (in the UK, 192.com does the same thing).
Typically, these sites show some information publicly. Then they charge people for access to the full details, such as complete addresses, phone numbers, and so on.
Beyond public listing sites, search engines and social media companies also hold plenty of information about you that can be misused.
What information about you is available online?
These sites can gather a lot of information about you, including but not limited to things like:
- Your name.
- Your current home address.
- Property details, such as whether you own a home.
Some sites may even have access to more sensitive personal data, such as your Social Security number.
What problems can arise when personal information is available on the Internet?
If hackers get hold of this information, you risk identity theft, online scams, SIM swapping, and other cyberattacks. The more people who can access your personal information, the easier it is for bad actors to impersonate or target you.
If you're concerned about privacy, you should take this information down. That's especially important if you want to avoid being tracked or harassed.
Where do these sites get personal data?
Although these sites can be annoying and invasive, they aren't illegal. Even though you didn't hand your information to the sites yourself, they still collect information that is already publicly available.
Most often, these sites pull personal data from public government databases. These include voter lists, census records, criminal conviction databases, marriage certificate records, land use records, and so on.
Another source many sites use is your social media profile. If you have personal information that's publicly accessible on your Facebook, LinkedIn, or X account, it will probably show up on a directory page. You should consider whether you're sharing too much information online.
How to remove personal information from public profiles on the Internet
In the past, listing sites made it very hard to delete your personal data. They would often add extra hurdles to discourage you, such as making you print and mail a paper form or even asking you to send a fax.
Now, partly thanks to the EU's GDPR, sites must give you a reasonable way to remove your details. Even if you live outside the EU, a site has to let you delete your information if it operates in Europe. What's more, removing your personal data from these sites is free. Third-party services may offer to remove your public information from the Internet for a fee, but most major sites have an official request process that won't cost you a cent.
Here are 3 ways to remove your information from public profiles online.
1. Clear your traces on social media
Facebook and X are probably where you'll focus the most here. Fortunately, Facebook has a feature that lets you bulk delete your old posts. You can do this from any computer.
- Log in to your Facebook account and click your name to go to your profile.
- Click Manage posts right below where you create a new post.
- Use Filter to sort posts however you prefer.
- Select the checkbox on each post to mark it for bulk deletion.
- Click Next.
- On the next page, select the Delete posts box and press Done.
All of your selected posts will be deleted within a few seconds.
Unlike Facebook, X doesn't offer any feature for bulk deleting old tweets. You can use third-party tools such as TweetDelete and Tweet Deleter, which offer free plans (with limitations, of course).
Now, take a similar approach with Instagram. Go to your account settings and bulk delete old or unwanted posts. Here's how:
- Log in to your account and click More (three lines) in the bottom left.
- From there, select Your Activity.
- Click Photos and videos.
- Depending on what you want to delete, choose Posts, Reels, or Highlights.
- Tap Select, then choose all the posts you want to delete.
- Finally, click Delete.
You'll be asked to confirm after the last step. Click Delete and you're done - the post will be removed from Instagram immediately.
2. Delete old emails and email accounts
Old emails that are no longer useful in your account hold a lot of sensitive information that could be used against you. To protect yourself, you should delete old emails you haven't touched in years.
But what if you suddenly need them again someday? If that worries you, just download the emails to your hard drive. That will be much safer than cloud servers anyway.
If you can afford an encrypted email service, consider using one. ProtonMail and Tutanota are great options to start with.
3. Ask data brokers to delete your profile
Online data brokers are companies that collect your personal information, including where you live, your gender, and your date of birth. Sometimes they also hold more private details, like information about your partner, how many children you have, and so on.
This database about you helps them build a more realistic profile of you for marketing and advertising purposes, which they ultimately sell to other companies.
Fortunately, you can remove your data from such sites. All you have to do is send them an email. Here are some of the most popular sites that collect personal data:
- WhitePages
- 411.info
- PeopleFinders
- BeenVerified
- 192.com
- PeekYou
- Intelius
- Radaris
Most popular brokers will remove all or part of your information if you ask. But be warned: sometimes online data brokers will ask for additional details in the removal form. You should only provide details the site already has; never give out any new information.
You can also hire an online content or personal data removal service if you don't have much time. For a service fee, they'll do the cleanup for you.
4. Remove your personal data from Google Search
Another important step in removing your personal data from public profiles is managing Google's search results about you. Although Google offers a fast search experience, it's no surprise that it also carries plenty of privacy problems. Showing your personal information without authorization across its products, especially Google Search, is one of them.
Fortunately, you can take it down relatively easily. For example, if old photos or other content show up when you search for yourself on Google Search, you can easily remove that content through Google's support page.
You can also ask Google to remove personal data (bank account numbers, government IDs, signatures, and so on) if it appears in searches about you. Again, just go to Google's Support page and click Start removal request. From the new page, follow the steps below:
- Choose the reason for removing the content, enter your country of residence, and click Next.
- Select the type of personal information you want removed (address, government ID, signature image, and so on), fill in any other relevant information if asked, and click Next.
- Enter a few more details, such as your email address, image/content URLs, screenshots, and so on.
- Select the confirmation checkbox and click Next.
That's it! Your request will be submitted, and you'll immediately receive a confirmation in your Google email. Google will investigate and remove any harmful content on URLs covered by its policies. If not, you'll get a short explanation in the email with the reason.
Google has simplified the process of removing outdated or unwanted content. But that isn't enough. In the long run, switching to more privacy-focused alternatives to Google will best serve the privacy of your personal data .
