Don't Get Doxxed! The Steps You Should Take Now to Protect Yourself
Data Brokers (like whitepages.com) make it easy for anyone to find all of your personal information (emails, phone #s, addresses). Read on to learn how to get them to stop showing your records.
Minimizing your online footprint is the most important way to improve your privacy, security, and safety in both the digital and physical realms.
If they can’t find your email, they can’t hack you.
If they can’t find your phone number, they can’t spam, SIM Swap, or harass you.
If they can’t find your address, they can’t show up at your house.
The easier it is for a bad actor to find your personal information, the easier it is for them to hack your accounts, scam your relatives, harass you by phone, show up at your house, or do other types of harm.
Making it difficult for people to find your personal information is critical, especially nowadays. It has become a common tactic in the United States to DOX people that they want to hurt or intimidate (doxxing is publishing people’s personal information online, resulting in harassment both virtually and physically). Unfortunately, this has been a common tactic used politically these days.
There is an entire industry, the data broker industry, that is built on collecting, consolidating, and linking pieces of personal information to individuals. There have been a lot of news articles and other information about how this industry works; here’s one article from CNBC, or you can search “data broker industry” on your favorite search engine to learn more.
In short, data brokers collect information in various ways, including buying it from companies that collect personal information as part of their services (many companies in multiple industries monetize their customer lists by selling it this way) or from publicly available sources. Then, the data brokers consolidate and tie the pieces of information, such as Names, Birthdays, Relatives, SSNs, Driver’s License Numbers, Addresses, Emails, Phone Numbers, Gender, GPS locations, etc., to an individual. They sell this information for profit to other companies, governments, and marketing firms, to name just a few.
Some data brokers even sell the data directly to other consumers, such as whitepages.com. This makes it easy for anyone to obtain information about someone’s email, phone number, relatives, and where they live for a very low price.
There are two things you can do to make it more difficult and expensive for someone to find out your personal information.
Suppress your information from data brokers by requesting opt-outs.
The good news is that most “reputable” data brokers will honor requests to opt out of your data.
An opt-out suppresses the results when someone searches for your name in a data broker. Here’s an example from whitepages.com of someone named “John Smith” in New York who did not opt out of whitepages.com.
If you submit an opt-out, like I have, your information will not show up, as you can see below.
Opt-Out Method #1: Automated (pay a company to do this for you)
There are hundreds of data brokers out there. Making individual requests can be time-consuming, and if you want to do this correctly, you need to check all data brokers over time to ensure your records don’t pop up again. There is a growing industry of companies that automate this process for you.
Step 1: Find a removal company you trust and pay them to do this for you.
Various companies do this for you. DeleteMe, Optery, and Kanary are a few examples, and it is worth the investment.
I highly recommend using Kanary. I used DeleteMe previously and found that Kanary was more thorough than DeleteMe. I also know the founder of Kanary, who is knowledgeable, passionate, and trustworthy. Kanary is a woman-led small business that is doing great innovation in this space, so I wholeheartedly recommend using them.
DANGER: DO NOT USE OneRep. This article by Brian Krebs links OneRep to data broker companies (the very companies that they are supposedly removing your information from). With this information, OneRep falls into the “Company I DO NOT TRUST category.”
If you can afford it, the cost of a service like this is worth the benefit and reduction in risk. This will make it harder for people to find your personal information.
Opt-Out Method #2: Manual (do it on your own)
You can opt-out manually, but it is very time-consuming (although it will be free). Here’s how you do it.
Step 1: Find the data broker website that has your information. A Google search of your name will often pull up the top data brokers. You can also visit a specific data broker web page (i.e., whitepages.com).
Step 2: Submit a request for the data broker to remove your information. Look for a “help” center, “FAQ,” “Privacy Policy,” or “Legal” section. You may have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find these.
These data brokers almost always have an “opt-out” or “remove listing” option in these sections. Each website has its policy and instructions for removal, which you should follow to remove your record.
Step 3: Follow the opt-out instructions for the website to have your record removed.
Many people have asked me if providing additional personal information to opt out of a record is safe. For example, some websites require proof of identity (i.e., a driver’s license) before they will remove your record. It’s up to you, but my advice is that these companies already have all your information, so giving them an image of your driver’s license is not providing them with new information. If it makes it harder for someone to get all my information, it’s worth it. However, I would not give my driver’s license to a company that either has bad reviews and/or looks particularly shady.
Step 4: Repeat for all data brokers that have your personal information.
Advanced Tip: There are many guides on the internet that list data brokers and link to the opt-out forms. Here’s a good one from DeleteMe that I like.
The real answer: remove the underlying information that data brokers rely on.
Preventing your information from being accessed by a data broker is a better preventative step, but it requires additional steps.
You do this by reducing the number of databases your personal information gets dumped into. If you reduce the places that have your information, then the data brokers aren’t able to collect it, consolidate it, and tie it to you in the first place.
I have written several blogs about these topics, which are linked below. These are the basics, but I recommend subscribing and reading all my posts to holistically improve your privacy and security. Please consider supporting me and this vital work by becoming a paid subscriber, which unlocks access to all of my posts from the past two years.
Don’t use your real name (as much as legally possible).
Get a secondary phone number and email address, and use those (instead of your primaries).
Protect your address.
Follow my privacy checklist.
Stay Safe,
Tate
What if your information is already on the dark web? Isn't a waste of time and money trying to get your information removed through a removal company?