Each time you punch your personal details into a site or use a search engine, you’re leaving a trail of data behind you – and these details can be collected by data aggregators and sold on to third parties (like marketing and advertising companies).
You might be surprised (or horrified) to learn just how much these companies know about you and your online habits. Luckily, this is where today’s best data removal services enter the picture.
These companies exist to help you reclaim your personal data and take your privacy back into your own hands. Today, I’ll take a look at exactly how data removal services work – and which sites and services are the most hungry for your details.
What are data removal services?
Let’s admit it, we’ve all looked ourselves up on Google to see just how much the internet knows about us and, inevitably, been surprised at the number of results that show up.
The worrying truth is that a Google search barely scratches the surface. It pulls information from your accounts and posts on sites like Facebook and Reddit, but there’s even more information beyond this that’s readibly available to anyone willing to pay. Think data brokers and people-finding sites.
There’s a wealth of personal information up for grabs for anyone who is willing to pay
Data removal services find and delete this information on your behalf. They automate the process of sending out removal requests, increasing your online anonymity and reducing your digital footprint for you – saving you a massive amount of time. After all, there are hundreds of these data-harvesting companies out there, so manually sending out all these different requests would take you days or weeks
This is particularly important if you have a vested interest in maintaining your online privacy or just want to stop estranged family members, ex-partners, or overly nosy employers from digging into your online activities.
There are a lot of data removal services on the market, such as Incogni, Aura, Kanary, DeleteMe, but they all tend to work in much the same way –
- You provide your personal details to the service. Usually, this will include your name, address, and whatever email addresses you might have
- The service runs a scan through a database of hundreds of brokers and people-finder sites to determine where your information is being held
- The service will automatically file a removal request on your behalf, requesting the brokers remove your data from their records. Then you just need to sit back and wait for the brokers to delete your details
- Just remember that while many brokers will act on your request the same day they receive it, others may take a lot longer.
- The best removal services are transparent about how they handle your data and will set your expectations about how the process will be handled from beginning to end.
What are data brokers?
Data brokers are companies that exist solely to collect personal information from across the web. They use it to build up a detailed picture of who you are and then sell that information to third parties. It’s a lucrative industry, estimated to be worth north of $400 billion, and some of today’s biggest data brokers include Experian, Equifax, and Acxiom.
Data brokers are interested in anything and everything they can learn about you, and they use a variety of different sources to collect data. They not only look at your web browsing habits, but they also check your purchasing history, whether you use loyalty cards, and public records such as census data, birth certificates, marriage certificates, and more.
Every step you take…
Your digital footprint can reveal a lot about you – like your personal details and online activity. Head on over to our guide to cleaning your digital footprint to ensure your most sensitive details stay secure.
They’re after everything from addresses, both current and previous, your date of birth, family and marital status, email address, hobbies, occupation, and buying habits, to name but a few.
They then parcel this information up and sell it on to interested parties. Usually, these will be marketing firms, other businesses, governments, etc, but there’s no guarantee that this information won’t end up in the hands of bad actors who buy the data for their own ends (like launching identity fraud campaigns or online stalking)
Data brokers can make billions of dollars a year by selling the personal data they collect without you ever consenting to your data being used in this way.
What are people-finding services?
As well as data brokers, there are other companies interested in learning all they can about as many people as they can. People-finding services (sometimes also called people search sites) help users find information about specific individuals.
They do this by scraping information from all over the web. Their sources include social media, forums, court records, public records, and other sources that are readily available. Examples of people finding services include BeenVerified, PeopleLooker, and Truthfinder, though there are many others.
Like data brokers, these companies are interested in information like names, email addresses, phone numbers, and even more sensitive information like social security numbers. Just like data brokers, people-finding services are often used by unsavory individuals, such as criminals looking for information on potential marks.
Do I need a data removal service?
The end result of all this is that anyone who uses the internet likely has a whole lot of data stored on these brokerage sites – and there are a lot of good reasons why you might not want them to know as much as they do.
So, just like today’s best VPNs and most reliable anti-virus products, it’s well worth investing in a solid data removal service, as data brokerage companies are never going to stop trying to collect as much information about you as they possibly can.
That said, certain parties might have a more vested interest in wanting to control this information. These parties can include:
- Privacy purists: These are folks who don’t want an identifiable digital footprint on the web and object to companies making money selling their personal information
- Journalists: Journalists report on any number of sensitive issues, so they might want to limit the amount of information that’s available about them to prevent harassment or identity theft.
- Victims of stalking or abuse: Folks trying to turn their lives around and/or escape an abusive situation would understandably not want their address or phone number available for anyone to purchase
- People who work in sensitive industries: If you hold a job where secrecy is paramount, for example, if you work for a cybersecurity organization, you won’t want your personal information anywhere where a criminal group might be able to lay their hands on it
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