How to Limit Personal Information Online

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  • ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    A couple of updates.

    Ancestry did remove my records those of my immediate family after a few back and forth email exchanges with their support team.

    Mylife.com also did remove records after a second email request.

    I stumbled across a different removal challenge today. While searching https://www.peoplewhiz.com/ I found a pretty good data set that didn't seem to be linked to one of the big 10. There removal process seemed pretty easy https://www.peoplewhiz.com/optout/ you just type in your name, state and then some throwaway email. However the next page asks you to upload a copy of your "ID". That threw me off a bit and I certainly didn't want to upload a copy of my drivers license. I checked their instructions found elseware on the website and it didn't specifically say a "State Issued ID". So I thought about uploading something like a work ID with photo, but why upload my real photo. So I decided to create a fake ID using the free web-photo editor www.pixlr.com and made my own fake gym membership card with my address and expiration date along with a photo. For the photo I went to https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ and refreshed the page a few times until there was a good front facing photo of a middle aged guy. I saved the fake ID and then uploaded to the site. Within a few minutes I received a confirmation email with link to confirm my opt-out request. My record was immediately removed. It's obvious no human is reviewing these ID's. So I created a fake one for my Wife, Daughter, Son, Mom and Dad and then deleted all of their info too.

    Here is what it looks like.
    0170e19bb3a386c5f89e883ec36bc7bc.jpg



    So far I've confirmed or requested 1040 Records to be removed. Of the 1040 there are about 200 active request which are pending and have not yet been removed. In a small number of cases I've revived responses by email stating that I cannot remove records for family members. This is just maybe about 20-30, so when I get time, I'll just try again with more convincing credentials. I've got 64 sites to still visit to remove my own records. That's 640 request for the close family, where my own name may be listed in their records. So it's moving along.
     
    Last edited:

    Bob A

    όυ φροντισ
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    Patriot Picket
    Nov 11, 2009
    30,690
    This strikes me as an interesting business opportunity for some enterprising computer nerd; a service that removes your online presence as much as possible.

    It could be big. Really big.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    This strikes me as an interesting business opportunity for some enterprising computer nerd; a service that removes your online presence as much as possible.

    It could be big. Really big.


    They already exist in two ways. Big companies that advertise often but do not do a thorough job. The’ll get you removed from the big 10 (maybe top 20) data brokers but not all. While removing info from the top players will have an impact, because all of the smaller companies that just broker the data of the big companies will be cleaned too, you’ll still be left woth about 50 companies that are not addressed. So you name and address will still pop up in searches. You’ll be paying about $200/yr for a half ass job.

    Then there are smaller, private investigator type firms where you pay by the hour. If there is a lot of data out there it could take 20-40 hrs of time to remove. I couldn’t imagine that you could get a complete job donn for less than $2K, but maybe more.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    I got into a pretty heated discussion with a relative who felt it was his duty to provide all my personal and family information including photos on all the genealogy sites.


    So this is a bit of a sensitive subject with my mom. She has worked a long time to try and go back and find out as much as possible about our ancestors. She has an account on Ancestry.com that I discovered as I was trying to delete my info. My mom’s actual page did list the names of me and my brothers but Not out addresses. However simply searching the site for our specific names did reveal all of the public data that Ancestry.com had scraped from various databases.

    After my request to remove my personal info I went back to my mom’s family tree page and I it now shows three siblings but the names are just listed as “Private”.

    I’m going to have to keep tabs on this and see if it stays private over time.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    This strikes me as an interesting business opportunity for some enterprising computer nerd; a service that removes your online presence as much as possible.

    It could be big. Really big.

    After my reply from this morning, I stumbled onto an online company that claims to remove your data from 39 Companies and keeps it removed for $299/yr. https://brandyourself.com/ I created an account just to see what they cover. It looks like they do actually remove and track removal from those 39 companies. All of the big ones plus a bunch of second tier companies. However by removing those 39 that would likely filter down through at least half maybe 2/3 of the list from https://inteltechniques.com/workbook.html.

    The interesting thing is that anyone can create an account and use their search engine to see a very quick list of the companies and the data that are currently exposed. There is no cost to create an account.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    After 3 weeks I'm now spending about 20-30min an evening confining data deletions. Some sites where I requested data deletions 2-3 weeks ago are just now responding that data has been removed. I'm not down to just 39 sites out of the initial 170 on the list which are either pending or where I have been blocked from removal.

    I''ve now started the stage of leaving the fake breadcrumbs. Initially I was planning on going through my old emails and finding merchants or websites where I had previously created accounts and going back to them and deleting my account. Now, I've decided to use those sites to my advantage. In stead of deleting my info, I'm logging back into to those sites to change my mailing address to an old previous address, which was listed incorrectly on a few of the sites I found. So now I'm populating this fake address into a bunch of unused websites. I'm also turning back on participation in marketing emails and directing them to an unused email. On some of those sites there is even a check box to share my information with other companies who offer similar service. I am checking to see if I had any credit card info saved and deleting that if it's found.

    I did create a fake Publishers Clearing House account with the fake address. I'm also logging into some people search sites, where I can "Claim" my address (using the incorrect address), I'm not going in and entering just my First and Last name. I'll be monitoring to see if this fake information starts to get populated into some of the search sites over the next few months.
     
    Dec 31, 2012
    6,704
    .
    Instead of deleting my info, I'm logging back into to those sites to change my mailing address to an old previous address, which was listed incorrectly on a few of the sites I found. So now I'm populating this fake address into a bunch of unused websites.

    Truly a fake address or real address that was never yours? That part was not clear to me. You might be sending a crapload of junk mail to some unlucky person that lives there now.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    Truly a fake address, real address that was never yours, or your old address? That part was not clear to me. You might be sending a crapload of junk mail to some unlucky person that lives there now.


    My previous address was a real address but when I was searching I found a few sites had the right street but had the house number wrong. Two numbers were transposed. I checked that house number and it does not exist. Google maps points to a part of the street where no house exists. So I figured I would just go with it. I’m sure any mail attempt to be delivered there will simply be returned to sender.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    Here is an article I stumbled upon describing California’s recent Privacy law that went into effect last year which requires companies to delete data for California residents within 45 days upon request, among other requirement.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...0-99s-how-to-get-them-to-delete-it/ar-AAOQaV1

    Seems like other states including VA have already passed similar laws. Many of the online companies I’ve referenced basically honor deletion requests from anywhere, just as they honor request from CA residents. Some however have separate procedures for non-CA residents. I suspect as more states pass similar laws requesting deletion of personal information may get a lot easier.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    I found a really great resource for anyone working through deleting personal records.

    https://wiki.onerep.com/ This site list detailed instructions on how to find and delete your personal information from 106 popular websites. Just go to the wiki page, click the company you are trying to remove your data from, then they list step by step instructions. I found this site because I was bumping my head into a brick wall trying to delete info from www.people-search.com there didn't seem to be any method for removal except email, but the address they listed was invalid. The steps on the onerep.com wiki, ALMOST worked, they were close, but they gave me enough info to work through the problem and I was able to get the info deleted. I was stuck on Peekyou.com and these instructions worked. I'm going to update this link in the initial post.

    Now here is another useful feature on onerep.com at the top of the wiki page you can enter your name and they will search records from all 106 of their linked sites at one time. This is much much faster than using many of the actual sites to search. I ran the search with my first and last name, and it reported back that it found 90 records in my name. They ask you for an email address, and I used a throwaway email to register a free account. Once you do that you'll be presented with an actual list showing more details about the listings they found in your name search. In my case there were a lot or people with my same name, that I had seen before, but it did uncover 26 actual records with my name, or my fathers name, at either my current address or at my fathers address. Of these 26 companies, most were ones which I've already discovered and am in the process of deleting, but a few were companies that I had not yet discovered. So this list is a great tool in my opinion.

    Now the whole goal of presenting you with this list is to convince you to sign up for their deletion service. I was a bit surprised at the cost. For a single individual the price is $15/month or $100 per year. However you can also sign up for the family plan which includes removal for 6 people. That is $28/mo or $180 per year. Considering I've already spend maybe 20hrs on this endeavor, I am considering trying out the family plan to see if they get more results quickly. Considering that I have a few stubborn data brokers left to deal with it may be worth it for me to give it a shot.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    A lot of opt out, click here emails just confirm they have a working email.

    I didn't respond to your post when you first posted it, but I've been putting this to the test for the last 30 days. As I've begun migrating my old @gmail, @hotmail and @verizon email boxes to my new protonmail account, I've decided to ht those opt-out and unsubscribe links to see if they have any effect. The worst was probably hotmail since that email address was over 20 yrs old. There would be perhaps 20-30 spam emails per day. Granted a lot were from the same organizations each day but it was still hundreds per week. So while deleting old messages I decided to actually click those links and opt-out. I did the same on the gmail and verizon accounts too.

    Now after almost 30 days of this process i may get only 1 or 2 unwanted emails per day across all three mailboxes. I can confirm that every single one of those emails from actual services or merchants actual did stop.
    I would suggest if anyone is getting a crap-load of unwanted emails, go ahead and start hitting those opt-out/unsubscribe links. It does work.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    I’ve almost completed a massive email migration and account deletion. I had over 200 saved account passwords in my iphone and google chrome. Some accounts were over 10yrs old. Some were iphone apps where the company doesn’t even have a website.

    So the first step was to attempt to log into each of these sites (or apps) to see if I still had an account. Once I did that I really then had the following decisions to make;

    1) Do I want to keep an account profile on this site/app? If yes, I migrated everything over to one of several new email accounts. Then setup new totally unique and strong passwords stored in Bitwarden. If the site had personal info that was not actually required for use, I deleted it.

    2) If the site or service was one I no longer needed, I attempted to change or delete all info. If the site actually had a “delete my account” function I just did that. If there was no delete function I just entered totally fictitious info. Also deleted any payment info. I still migrated to contact info to a trash collection mailbox and changed the PW for good measure.

    Also for any accounts where possible I enabled 2FA.

    Some if the hardest things to discover and delete were apps. I didn’t realize I had games that my kids had downloaded on their ipod’s using my account. So for most of those I had to download and install the app on my phone then delete my account from within the app. Pain in the rear.




    Also just an update. After about a week if working OneRep.com has already deleted about 60 records that I had not yet found or that I had not yet been able to confirm data deletion. It seems like it’s not a bad augmentation to my strategy.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    Just circling back after 4 months of using onerep.com and today the last of the personal info that was found by onrep.com has been deleted online. So Onerep scanned 87 sites and found some of my personal info at 47 of those sites. Some of those sites were ones where I had already found my info as well, but had not yet successfully removed my info. The last two months there were still 7 records found on socalcatfish.com which seemed to be stuck. So I'm sure my personal info can still be found somewhere online, but for the most part I wold say 99% of the most easily accessible info has been removed.

    I went ahead and included my wife, kids and parents on the family plan and all told one rep has removed 126 family records too from all of our current and previous addresses.
     

    ToolAA

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 17, 2016
    10,499
    God's Country
    Just another update on the online removal process. It's been about 1 full year since I started this post and I wanted to post my progress thus far. In some ways I can say the task was really daunting when I first started looking into the process and I really didn't think I would ever get as far as I've done.

    Email migration from Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo is totally done. All useful email contacts or business that I want to be able to contact me by email have been migrated to Proton Mail. I still monitor gmail and yahoo for the occasional message from an old contact or a business that still has my information, that I had forgotten about. Occasionally, one comes across, and I either go to that business site and change my information to a fake address or, if they are necessary I may delete my old info, and just leave the bare info needed to maintain an account.

    Credit had been totally locked down for almost a year, and I've contacted all my credit cards and financial business with "do not sell my information" requests. The amount of physical junk mail has been reduced to almost zero. I used to throw away 2-5 pieces of mail every day. Now we sometimes go a day or two without any mail.

    Removal of information from online databases and people search sites has required the most work, but after 1 year I finally eliminated 100% of my immediate families profiles from all of the people search sites listed on Michael Bazell's website, and the Onerep.com scan of 101 sites with my name. For my parents there are only 2 sites still active with their personal information from the initial 86 records found. I went back through the Inteltechniques workbook and randomly searched about 2 dozen of the sites which had previously had listed my information, but I was unable to find any that had re-appeared. So at this point I would say the goal has been met.

    From this point forward, I'm going to continue to limit sharing my personal info where possible. Provide false info, when possible and periodically audit the list so see if any info turns up on any of the sites.
     

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