How to remove your personal information from the internet (people-search sites)

Where your information actually comes from

Nobody breaks into anything to build a people-search profile. Data brokers assemble them from records that are already out there: property and court records, voter files in some places, marketing lists, public social media, and information bought from other brokers. The result is a page with your name, age, current and past addresses, phone numbers and a list of relatives. Some sites show a teaser for free and charge for the rest. Others show it all.

The same record often appears on dozens of sites, because brokers buy from and sell to each other. That has two consequences. First, removing yourself from one site does not clear the others. Second, a listing you removed can return when the broker next buys a fresh batch of data. That is why this is a routine you repeat, not a one-time job.

Step 1: find out what is out there

Start by searching for yourself the way a stranger would. Use a private browsing window so your own history does not colour the results.

• Search your full name in quotes, then your name with your city, then your name with your phone number or email.
• Search your home address and your main phone number on their own.
• Click through the first two pages of results and note every people-search or background-check site that shows you.
• Open each listing and copy its web address into a spreadsheet, with the date. You will need the exact page address for most opt-outs.
• Check relatives and past addresses too. A listing under a former surname still points at you.

Step 2: opt out of each people-search site, for free

Every reputable data broker offers a way to ask for removal, although they rarely put it on the front page. The pattern is almost always the same:

• Find your listing and copy its address.
• Look in the footer of the site for links named Opt Out, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Privacy Rights or Remove My Info. Or search the site's name plus the words opt out.
• Paste your listing address into the removal form. Some sites also ask for your email so they can send a confirmation link.
• Click the confirmation link. Skipping this step is the most common reason a request silently does nothing.
• Write down the date, the site and what it told you. Come back in a week or two and search again. Some sites process removals within days, others take several weeks.

Use a dedicated email address for this, not your main one. Opt-out forms ask for an email and some of that data is sold on, which would be an unfortunate plot twist. Never send a copy of your ID unless you have confirmed you are on the broker's real site and there is no other option. Many sites ask for nothing more than a listing address.

Site-by-site opt-out guides

If you already know which site lists you, these guides give the exact steps, what to expect and how long it can take for 20 of the biggest US people-search sites. Where we could not read a site's own page, the guide says so.

• How to remove yourself from Spokeo
• How to remove yourself from Whitepages
• How to remove yourself from BeenVerified
• How to remove yourself from Intelius
• How to remove yourself from PeopleFinders
• How to remove yourself from TruePeopleSearch
• How to remove yourself from FastPeopleSearch
• How to remove yourself from MyLife
• How to remove yourself from Instant Checkmate
• How to remove yourself from TruthFinder
• How to remove yourself from Nuwber
• How to remove yourself from ThatsThem
• How to remove yourself from PeopleLooker
• How to remove yourself from USPhoneBook
• How to remove yourself from ClustrMaps
• How to remove yourself from SmartBackgroundChecks
• How to remove yourself from CheckPeople
• How to remove yourself from FamilyTreeNow
• How to remove yourself from Addresses.com
• How to remove yourself from AdvancedBackgroundChecks

More guides on this topic

• Is DeleteMe worth it? An honest look at what a removal service does and who can skip it.
• DeleteMe vs. doing it yourself A side-by-side of money, time and coverage.
• How to remove your address and phone number from Google The free Google tools first.
• What to do after a data breach A calm checklist.
• Privacy for specific jobs: teachers, healthcare workers, real estate agents and police and first responders.

Step 3: use the legal tools that exist where you live

Some places give you rights that make this easier. In the United States there is no single national rule, but several states let residents ask businesses to delete personal data. California residents can use the state's Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, known as DROP, to send one deletion request to the data brokers registered in the state. According to the state, brokers must start accessing DROP at least once every 45 days from August 1, 2026, and it can take up to 90 days for your status to update. It covers brokers registered in California, so it is a big help, not a complete fix.

In the European Union and the United Kingdom, data protection law gives you the right to ask a company to erase your data and to object to its use. Writing to a broker's privacy contact and quoting that right works more often than not, and companies are expected to answer within a month. Whatever your location, the broker's privacy policy normally states which rights apply and how to use them.

Step 4: remove results from Google, too

Google can only remove things from Google Search. It cannot delete the page from the website that hosts it. Still, if a listing is hard to find, it is much less useful to the person looking.

Google's Results about you tool lets you see search results that contain your address, phone number or email and ask for them to be removed. You can also set it to notify you when new results appear. According to Google's removal policy page, you can also request removal of results containing government ID numbers, bank account or card numbers, images of your signature or ID, and similar private records, and you can report doxxing content, which means your information shared to harm or harass you. You supply the web addresses and Google reviews each one. Content that is newsworthy or in the public interest may be refused.

The sensible order is: opt out at the source first, then ask Google to remove what it still shows. If the source page is gone, Google tends to drop the result on its own after it next visits the page, and the request speeds that up.

How often do listings come back?

Often enough that you should plan for it. Brokers refresh their data from new public records and purchased lists, and a person who was removed can be added again if the new data matches. There is no fixed schedule that applies to every site, and we are not aware of a reliable published figure, so treat anything that promises a number with some suspicion.

A realistic routine is to search for yourself again a month after your opt-outs, then every few months. Keep your spreadsheet and repeat only the sites where you reappear. If you move, change your phone number or buy a home, expect a new round of listings, because those events create fresh public records.

What removal cannot do

It is worth being blunt here, because some marketing is not.

• It does not make you invisible. Anyone with enough determination, a court record search or a trip to the county office can still find public records.
• It does not delete the source records. Property deeds, court filings and similar records are public by design, and brokers can re-collect them.
• It does not undo a data breach. If your details were in a leak, they are already circulating, and the right response is new passwords and two-factor authentication.
• It does not stop scam calls overnight. It can reduce how many lists you are on over time, which is not the same as zero.
• It does not touch what you posted yourself. Old social media posts, forum accounts and photos are separate clean-up jobs.

Paying someone to do it

If you read the steps above and thought, I would rather eat the spreadsheet, that is a fair reaction. Doing opt-outs by hand across dozens of sites, then repeating it, is tedious. Several companies sell that repetition as a subscription. Alternatives to the one we link include Incogni, Aura and Optery. They differ in price, coverage and method, so compare before you pay anyone.

The one we link is DeleteMe. Remember what we said at the top: we earn a commission if you sign up, and we have not used the service. The details below come from DeleteMe's own pages as we read them on October 30, 2026, so treat them as the company's description and not as our test results.

• What it does: you give DeleteMe your personal details, and according to its site its team searches hundreds of data brokers and people-search sites for your information, submits opt-out and removal requests, and keeps monitoring and removing your information regularly, all year long.
• Human help: the plan page advertises live chat with personal privacy advisors, and DeleteMe describes removals as completed by its privacy advisors.
• What it says it removes: name, age, address, phone, relatives, social media, occupation, marital status, property value, past addresses, photos and email.
• Price: DeleteMe's help center describes the solo plan as about $11 a month, billed annually at $129, for one person for one year. Two-year and multi-person plans exist, and plans renew automatically unless you cancel. Prices change, so confirm on the live plans page.
• Our link's discount: the page our link opens advertises 20% off all privacy protection plans with the code PARTNER20, valid for new members only on USA consumer plans. See the current offer (Affiliate link).

Whether that is worth it depends on how much your time is worth and how much you would like not to be findable. If you would rather not pay, the free route gets you most of the way there, and nothing on this page requires you to buy anything. If you do want to look at DeleteMe, see the DeleteMe plans (Affiliate link).

If you live outside the United States, DeleteMe has a separate page for international customers, so check the DeleteMe international page (Affiliate link) to see what applies in your country. The US-only discount above does not apply there.

A sensible plan, in order

• Today: search yourself, list every listing, and use Results about you to see what Google shows.
• This week: opt out of each people-search site, confirm every email, and log the dates.
• In a month: search again, repeat the ones that returned, and ask Google to remove stale results.
• Every few months: a ten-minute re-check. Put it in your calendar and make it boring.

Check what your connection shows, too

People-search sites are one source of information about you. Your connection and browser are another. You can see what any website can learn from your visit with our IP lookup and browser fingerprint test, both free, and our guide to VPNs versus proxies explains what those tools do and do not hide.