How to remove your personal information from the internet
Your name, address, phone number and family ties are scattered across data brokers, search results, old accounts and breach dumps. This is the complete, free playbook for removing them — in priority order — and keeping them gone.
To remove your personal information from the internet: opt out of data brokers and people-search sites first (highest impact), use Google’s “Results about you” tool to clear search results, change any passwords exposed in breaches, take your phone number off broker sites, and lock down or delete old social and unused accounts. None of it is one-and-done — brokers re-list you within weeks, so removal has to be repeated or automated.
“Removing your personal information from the internet” means deleting or suppressing the copies of your identity that strangers can find: the data-broker profiles that list your address and phone, the search results that surface them, the breach dumps that leak your logins, and the public social profiles that tie it all together. There is no single delete button, because your data lives in many places at once and is continuously re-collected from public records. The practical goal is not a one-time wipe but getting your information off the sources that actually expose you, then re-removing it as it reappears.
The areas below are ordered by impact, top to bottom. If you only do one thing, do the first — data brokers are the most public and most-used source of your personal data.
What is actually published about you
A typical people-search profile is not one leaked document. It is a stitched-together record built from public filings and purchased marketing data, which is why it reads like someone has been following you for twenty years. Here is what a stranger can pull up about most U.S. adults, and where each piece comes from.
| Data point | Where it comes from | How exposed it is |
|---|---|---|
| Full name, nicknames and aliases | Voter rolls, property deeds, marketing lists | Free on most people-search sites |
| Current and past addresses | County property records, utility and mover marketing data | Free, usually with a map pin |
| Phone numbers | Carrier and loyalty-program marketing data, app permissions | Free; this is what robocall lists are built from |
| Email addresses | Breach dumps, newsletter and lead-generation lists | Free; this is what phishing is aimed at |
| Age and date of birth | Voter registration, court filings | Free |
| Relatives, roommates and neighbours | Shared addresses, marriage records, obituaries | Free, as a clickable family tree |
| Employer and job history | Résumé sites, scraped professional profiles, licence registries | Free or a few dollars |
| Property ownership and estimated value | County assessor and deed records | Free |
| Court, arrest and bankruptcy records | State and county case portals | Free, and often the top result for your name |
| Photos of you | Social profiles, news photos, scraped web images | Free on face-search engines |
1. Data brokers & people-search sites (start here)
Data brokers and people-search sites (Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, Radaris and hundreds more) are the most public copy of your personal information — they publish your name, current and past addresses, phone numbers and relatives, and sell access for a few dollars, which is how most spam, scams and doxxing start. Removing these listings has the highest impact, so do it first. Each broker has a free, legally-required opt-out; the hard part is scale — hundreds of sites, each with its own form, and they re-list you within weeks. Budget a couple of hours for the major ones, then re-check every 30–90 days. Our free data-broker opt-out guide gives step-by-step instructions for 100+ brokers — start with the highest-traffic ones (Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, Radaris, Intelius, MyLife) and work down the list.
2. Search engine results (Google & Bing)
Removing the source page doesn’t always clear it from search results immediately. Use Google’s “Results about you” tool to find pages exposing your contact info and request their removal from Search, and the “Refresh outdated content” tool for pages you’ve already taken down. Bing has an equivalent Content Removal request form. These don’t delete the underlying page — they remove it from the results that surface your name — so pair them with removing the source (the data-broker opt-outs above).
3. Data breaches & the dark web
Old breaches leak your email, passwords and sometimes phone and address into dumps that are traded and re-traded. You can’t “delete” a breach, but you can neutralize it: find out where you’re exposed, then rotate the affected passwords and turn on two-factor authentication. Check your email free with our data breach & dark-web check (checked against billions of leaked records), then fix what it finds. You can also browse the data breach directory to see which known breaches exposed your accounts and exactly what each one leaked.
4. Your phone number & spam calls
Your phone number spreads through the same broker and lead-generation pipeline, which is why the spam calls keep coming. Beyond carrier filters and the Do Not Call Registry, the durable fix is getting your number off the sites that publish it. See our guide to stopping spam calls for the free steps and the root-cause removal.
5. Social media & old accounts
Public social profiles and forgotten accounts are a rich, freely-scraped source of your data. Lock down privacy settings on active accounts (limit what’s public, remove your phone/address from profiles), and delete or deactivate accounts you no longer use — old profiles on defunct services are frequently scraped into broker databases. Search your own name in an incognito window to see what’s publicly visible, and work down the list.
6. Your photos & facial-recognition search
Face-search engines like PimEyes and FaceCheck.ID let anyone upload a photo and find other pictures of you across the web — a serious stalking and doxxing risk that ordinary opt-outs miss. Submit their opt-out / remove-my-photos requests (they verify it’s really you, sometimes with an ID), and tighten privacy on the social and profile photos that feed them so the images can’t simply be re-indexed later.
7. Government & public records
A lot of what brokers resell starts as public record — voter registrations, property deeds and court filings. You usually can’t erase the underlying record, but you can suppress the sites that republish it: opt out of voter-record and property-record aggregators, and ask your county clerk whether an address-confidentiality or redaction program applies — these exist specifically for survivors of stalking, domestic abuse or harassment. If it’s your street address you’re chasing rather than everything at once, the full sequence is in our guide to removing your home address from the internet.
8. Credit offers & junk mail
Pre-screened credit offers and marketing mail feed the same data ecosystem that brokers buy from. Opt out of pre-screened credit and insurance offers for free at OptOutPrescreen.com (or call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT), and cut marketing mail through DMAchoice. This won’t remove existing broker listings, but it shrinks the marketing-data feeds brokers resell, so less new information about you enters circulation over time.
9. Keep it removed (ongoing monitoring)
Removal is not one-and-done. Brokers re-scrape public records and rebuild your profile within weeks to months, so without monitoring your exposure quietly creeps back. Re-check the major sites on a schedule (every 30–90 days), or automate it so re-listings are caught and removed again without you having to remember.
How long removal takes
Most of the calendar time is waiting, not working. Each request is quick to file; what varies is how long the site takes to process it. Plan on a first pass over a couple of weekends, then a check-in every month or two.
| Step | Your time | Until it’s gone |
|---|---|---|
| Data-broker opt-out (per site) | 5–15 minutes | 3 days to 6 weeks |
| Google “Results about you” | 10 minutes to set up | Days to a few weeks |
| Google “Refresh outdated content” | 2 minutes per URL | Hours to days |
| Changing passwords exposed in a breach | 20–60 minutes | Immediate |
| Voter, property and court records | 15–45 minutes plus a county form | Weeks to months, if allowed at all |
| Face-search opt-out (PimEyes, FaceCheck.ID) | 10 minutes plus an ID check | Days to weeks |
| Locking down social profiles | 30 minutes | Immediate, though caches take weeks to clear |
| OptOutPrescreen and DMAchoice | 10 minutes | 5 days electronically, up to 3 months by mail |
Doing it yourself vs. using a removal service
Every removal in this guide is free to do yourself, and for a short list of sites that is the right call. The trade-off is not accuracy, it is stamina: opt-outs have to be repeated as brokers rebuild your profile from fresh public records.
| Doing it yourself | Automated removal service | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free, always | $8–25/month typically |
| Time for the first pass | 4–8 hours across a few weeks | 10 minutes to sign up |
| Sites you realistically cover | 20–40 of the big ones before fatigue wins | Hundreds, including the obscure ones |
| Re-listings | You have to remember to re-check every 30–90 days | Re-checked on a schedule |
| Proof it worked | You verify each site by hand | Status per site in a dashboard |
| Best for | A short list of sites, or a tight budget | Anyone who has tried the manual route once |
The law is mostly on your side
You are not asking these sites for a favour. 20 U.S. states have a comprehensive consumer privacy law in effect, and most grant a right to have a business delete the personal information it holds about you, plus a right to opt out of its sale. Several states also run a public data-broker registry, so you can look up who is holding your data and where to send the request.
California went furthest with the DELETE Act, which set up DROP — one state-run request that registered brokers have to keep honouring instead of you filing hundreds of separate opt-outs. Check what your state grants, and if a site drags its feet, our opt-out letter generator writes the formal request citing the right law.
Live somewhere without a privacy law? You still have leverage. Every major people-search site offers a free opt-out to anyone who asks, regardless of state, because it is easier for them than arguing about it.
Do all of it automatically
The steps above are free but add up to hours of work and need repeating. PersProtect finds where you’re exposed across 499 broker and people-search sites, files the removals, and re-checks on a schedule so your data doesn’t creep back. Start with a free exposure scan.
See where I’m exposed — free scan →Removing your information, answered
Can you ever fully remove yourself from the internet?
Not permanently in one pass. You can remove the large majority of your exposure — data-broker listings, old accounts, indexed pages — but public records and new data collection mean some information returns over time. Realistic success is getting your information off the sites that actually expose you and then re-removing it on a schedule, rather than a one-time “delete everything forever.”
How long does it take to remove your personal information from the internet?
Doing the major sources yourself takes several hours of work spread over a few weeks, because each data broker, search engine and platform has its own request and processing time (anywhere from minutes to six weeks). Keeping it removed is ongoing, since data brokers re-list people every few weeks to months.
Is it free to remove my information from the internet?
Yes — every data broker, Google’s “Results about you” tool, and the major platforms all offer free removal/opt-out. You never have to pay to delete a listing. People pay for automated services only to avoid the recurring manual work across hundreds of sites.
Where does my personal information online actually come from?
Mostly public records (voter rolls, property and court records), data brokers that buy and resell those records, marketing and loyalty data, social media profiles, and data breaches. Brokers aggregate these into a single searchable profile — which is why removing the broker listing removes the most visible copy.
Why does my information come back after I remove it?
Data brokers continuously re-scrape public records and buy fresh marketing data, so a profile you deleted is rebuilt within weeks to months. This is the single biggest reason a one-time cleanup doesn’t hold, and why removal has to be repeated or automated.
What is the most important first step?
Remove yourself from data brokers and people-search sites. They are the most public, most searchable, and most-used source of your personal data — and getting off them cuts the spam, scam and doxxing risk fastest. Start with our free data-broker opt-out guide.
Do I have a legal right to have my data deleted?
In much of the U.S., yes. 20 states now have a comprehensive consumer privacy law in effect, and most of them include a right to have a business delete the personal information it holds about you. California goes furthest: its DELETE Act created a single state-run platform (DROP) where one request reaches every registered data broker. Even in a state with no privacy law, every major people-search site still runs a free opt-out.
Will deleting my social media accounts take me off people-search sites?
No. Broker profiles are built mostly from public records and purchased marketing data, not from your social accounts, so they survive a deleted profile untouched. Closing old accounts is worth doing because it stops fresh data from being scraped, but the broker listings have to be opted out of separately.
Do I have to send a photo of my ID to opt out?
A few sites ask for it, mainly face-search engines that need to confirm the photos are of you. Most data brokers only need an email address and the URL of the listing. When a site does ask, black out everything except your name, photo and date of birth, and check that the request page is on the company’s own domain before uploading anything.
Will a background check still show my records after removal?
Yes, and that is by design. Regulated background checks run under the Fair Credit Reporting Act — the ones employers, landlords and lenders order — pull from licensed sources that opting out does not touch. Removing yourself from people-search sites takes your data away from anyone who can pay a few dollars, not from a legally ordered background check.
Is it worth paying for a removal service?
It depends on how much of your exposure you actually cleared by hand. Doing the top 20 sites yourself is genuinely effective and costs nothing. The reason people pay is the long tail plus the re-listings: a few hundred smaller sites, each rebuilding your profile every few weeks, is the part that stops getting done manually.
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