How to Remove Your Personal Information from Data Brokers

What Are Data Brokers?

A data broker is a company that collects personal information about people it doesn’t deal with directly and sells, licenses or shares it with others. California alone had more than 580 registered data brokers in 2026, and that count only includes companies that registered.

There are three main kinds:

• People-search sites sell profiles of individuals: names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, age, relatives and sometimes court records. Anyone can search them.
• Marketing data brokers build profiles and audience segments (for example, “new parents” or “likely to buy a car”) that companies use for advertising.
• Risk and identity data brokers supply data for fraud checks, identity verification and insurance.

Their data comes from public records (property records, court files and, in some states, voter rolls), from companies you buy from or sign up with, from apps and websites that track you, and from other data brokers. That’s why the same profile often appears on many sites at once. Our guide to how sales of personal data work explains the trade in more detail.

People-search sites usually say they are not consumer reporting agencies under the US Fair Credit Reporting Act. FastPeopleSearch, for example, states that its site “can’t be used for employment, credit or tenant screening.” In practice, that means their profiles don’t have to meet the accuracy rules that apply to credit reports, and they are often out of date or mix up people with similar names.

Why It's Worth Removing Your Data

Your safety. A listing with your home address, phone number and relatives’ names is exactly what a stalker or harasser needs. In 2020, a man who had found a US federal judge’s home address online shot and killed her son at the family’s home in New Jersey. The state’s response, Daniel’s Law, now lets judges, police officers and other public servants demand that their home addresses be removed.

Scams and phishing. The more a scammer knows about you, the more convincing their message or call becomes. Details such as your relatives’ names, past addresses and age make it easier to impersonate a bank, a family member or a delivery company. See why phishing is so common for the tricks to watch out for.

Identity theft. Your date of birth and past addresses are common answers to security questions.

Breaches. Data brokers get hacked too. In 2024, National Public Data, a background-check company, was breached, and the leaked data included Social Security numbers. The company later filed for bankruptcy.

Profiling. Marketing segments decide which ads and offers you see, and in some cases which prices. Read more about surveillance pricing.

Find Out Where You're Listed

Start by searching for yourself the way a stranger would:

• Search your full name with your city and state, then with previous cities you’ve lived in.
• Search your phone numbers, email addresses and home address separately.
• Check the largest people-search sites directly (see the next chapter). Many sites copy data from each other, so the big ones are the best place to start.

A few things make the job easier:

• Keep a simple list of each site, the address (URL) of each listing, the date you asked for removal and the date you checked again.
• Look for duplicate listings. One site can have several profiles of you, for example under a maiden name or an old address. Each one usually has to be removed separately.
• Use a separate email address for opt-out requests, such as an email alias, so the sites don’t get your main address.
• Don’t buy a report to see what a site has on you. The free search results are usually enough to find your listing.

If you live in California, check the state’s public data broker registry. Since 2026, registered brokers must also disclose whether they collect sensitive data such as precise location, biometric data or government ID numbers, and whether they shared data with foreign actors, government agencies, law enforcement or developers of generative AI in the past year. Vermont also publishes a registry with brokers’ opt-out links.

How to Opt Out, Step by Step

Most people-search sites follow the same pattern:

1. Find your listing and copy its URL.
2. Open the site’s opt-out page. If you can’t find it, look in the footer for links such as “Opt out,” “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” or “Privacy.”
3. Paste the URL or fill in the form, and give only the details the form needs.
4. Confirm the request by clicking the link in the email the site sends you, or with a code by phone.
5. Note the date and check again after a few days.

Here are the opt-out routes of some of the largest data brokers (checked in October 2026; they change often):

• Spokeo (spokeo.com/optout): paste the URL of your listing, enter an email address and confirm through the link Spokeo sends you. Each listing has its own URL and must be removed separately. Spokeo also points out that opting out doesn’t remove the data from its original source.
• Whitepages (whitepages.com/suppression-requests): paste the URL of your free listing (not a “Premium” result), choose a reason and confirm with a four-digit code during an automated phone call.
• Intelius, Instant Checkmate, TruthFinder and US Search: these sites belong to the same company, PeopleConnect, and share one free Suppression Center. You verify your email address, find your record and suppress it.
• Acxiom, one of the largest marketing data brokers (acxiom.com/optout): US residents can opt out of the sale of their data, and Acxiom also accepts requests to see or delete the data it holds. You confirm by email, or you can call the number on the page.
• LexisNexis Risk Solutions (opt-out page): you can opt out of its direct marketing services and its prescreening lists, and people facing a threat to their safety can ask for their information to be suppressed.

Other people-search sites have similar forms. A few practical tips:

• Expect some friction. Some sites ask for a phone call, and a few make the opt-out link hard to find. That’s normal, not a sign you’re doing something wrong.
• Don’t hand over more than necessary. If a site asks for a copy of your ID, read why before you send it, and don’t send anything to a site you aren’t sure is the real one.
• Check the result. Search for your listing again after a few days. If it’s still there, send the request again or contact the site’s support.

Your Legal Rights

Latest developments (updated October 31, 2026)

• Late August 2026: A New Jersey court ruled by default against the people-search site Radaris under Daniel’s Law and transferred its domain, radaris.com, to the company that had sued on behalf of thousands of police officers, judges and other protected people, KrebsOnSecurity reported. Radaris’s lawyer said he would ask the court to set the judgment aside.
• September 27, 2026: California’s governor signed AB 883. From January 1, 2027, data brokers must process DROP deletion requests every 30 days instead of every 45.
• 2027: New data broker rules take effect in Vermont, and New Jersey’s new broker registry starts operating.

In the US, there’s no federal law that lets you make data brokers delete your information. Your rights depend on your state:

• State privacy laws. About two dozen states now have comprehensive privacy laws that give residents the right to ask companies, including data brokers, to delete their data or stop selling it. Most of these laws exempt “publicly available” information, such as property and court records, and that’s a large part of what people-search sites show. Spokeo says so on its own opt-out page.
• Data broker laws. California, Vermont, Texas and Oregon require data brokers to register, and Connecticut and New Jersey passed new data broker laws in 2026.
• Laws for people at risk. Some states give specific groups stronger protection. New Jersey’s Daniel’s Law lets judges, police officers, prosecutors and their families demand that their home addresses and unlisted phone numbers be removed, with fines of $1,000 per violation.

California’s DROP. The Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) is a free tool run by the California Privacy Protection Agency (CalPrivacy). It works like this:

• Who can use it: California residents. You verify your residency through the state’s identity service, either with your personal details or with a Login.gov account.
• How it works: You enter your identifiers, such as your name, email addresses and phone numbers, and submit one request. It covers every registered data broker, and you get a DROP ID to check its status.
• What brokers must do: Since August 1, 2026, registered data brokers must check DROP at least every 45 days (every 30 days from 2027), delete the personal information they hold about you, including inferences, and keep you on a list so that new data about you isn’t sold or shared.
• What you’ll see: Each broker reports a status: deleted, opted out (when several people share the same identifier), exempted or not found.
• The limits: DROP covers only registered data brokers, not companies you deal with directly, such as your bank or a social network. Some data is exempt, for example information covered by federal financial privacy law.

More than 300,000 Californians had signed up by June 2026. Brokers that ignore requests face fines of $200 per request per day, and independent audits of brokers start in 2028.

In the EU and the UK, the GDPR (in the UK, the UK GDPR) applies to all personal data, including data a company collected from public sources. That gives you three strong tools:

• The right of access (Article 15): ask a company what data it holds about you and where it got it.
• The right to erasure (Article 17): ask it to delete your data.
• The right to object (Article 21): ask it to stop using your data. If the data is used for direct marketing, the company must stop.

The company must answer within one month. It can extend that by two more months for complex requests, but it has to tell you. If it doesn’t respond, you can complain to your national data protection authority, or in the UK to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Our guide to GDPR data subject rights explains each right, and our GDPR fines tracker shows how regulators punish companies that ignore them.

A short request is enough. For example: “Under Article 17 of the GDPR, I ask you to erase all personal data you hold about me, and under Article 21, I object to any further processing, including for direct marketing. Please confirm within one month. My details: [name, email address, postal address].” Include only the details the company needs to find you.

Removing Your Details from Google Search

Removing your data from Google doesn’t delete it from the site that published it, but it makes it much harder for strangers to find.

• Results about you. Google’s Results about you tool lets you ask Google to remove search results that show your phone number, home address or email address. In February 2026, Google added government ID numbers, such as driver’s license, passport and Social Security numbers, rolling out in the US first. Once you add your details, it monitors Search and alerts you to new results.
• In the EU and the UK, you can also ask Google to delist results about you under the “right to be forgotten” with its removal request form. Google weighs your privacy against the public interest, so it doesn’t approve every request.

As Google itself notes, removing a result from Search doesn’t remove the information from the web. Use these tools together with the opt-outs above, not instead of them.

Should You Pay a Removal Service?

Removal services do the opt-outs for you. They scan dozens or hundreds of data broker sites for your details, send removal requests on your behalf and check again regularly, for a yearly fee.

They save time, but they aren’t a guarantee. In a 2024 study by Consumer Reports, volunteers tested seven paid services against 13 people-search sites. After four months, the services had removed only 35% of the listings, while volunteers who opted out by hand removed about 70%. Results varied widely between services, which cost from about $20 to about $250 a year: EasyOptOuts and Optery performed best, DeleteMe, IDX and Kanary were in the middle, and Confidently and ReputationDefender removed the fewest listings. Consumer Reports noted that its sample of 32 people was small, and the services may have improved or changed since then.

Before you pay, keep in mind:

• You hand over your data. To find you, a removal service needs your name, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. Read its privacy policy.
• Coverage varies. Check which sites the service covers and whether it shows proof of each removal.
• Free options come first. If you live in California, DROP is free and covers all registered data brokers. Everywhere else, you can opt out of the largest people-search sites by hand for free.

A service can make sense if you have many listings and little time, but check its results yourself.

How to Keep Your Data Off

Removed listings often come back, because data brokers keep buying new records and other sites copy them. To stay off:

• Check again every three to six months, and repeat the opt-outs where needed.
• Share less in the first place. Use an email alias and a second phone number for shopping, loyalty programs, warranty registrations and online forms.
• Limit app permissions, especially location access, which feeds location data brokers.
• Opt out of prescreened credit offers. In the US, OptOutPrescreen.com, run by the major credit bureaus, stops prescreened credit and insurance offers for five years, or permanently if you sign and mail a form.
• Lock down social media profiles, since public profiles are an easy source for scrapers.
• Ask about address confidentiality. Many US states run programs that keep the home addresses of survivors of domestic violence and some other groups out of public records.

For more everyday steps, see our tips to secure your online privacy.

Summary

Data brokers collect your address, phone number, relatives and much more, and sell it to anyone who asks. You can get most of it removed: find your listings, opt out of the largest sites first, use your legal rights and remove the results from Google.

California’s DROP shows what a simpler system looks like: one request, every registered broker, repeated automatically. Everywhere else, removal still takes some work, and it’s never finished for good. A check every few months keeps most of your information out of sight.