How people-search sites get your information

People-search sites collect records about you from lots of places, match them up by name and address, and publish the result as a profile anyone can look up. You didn’t sign up for it, and you usually aren’t told. In most of the US, it’s legal, but most sites will take your listing down if you ask.

What a listing usually shows

Search your name on one of these sites and the free page often shows:

• Your full name, age and any past names
• Your current address, and often a list of past ones
• Phone numbers, sometimes with which one is a mobile
• Email addresses
• Relatives and people you’ve lived with, with links to their own listings

Some details are held back behind a paywall. That doesn’t keep them private. It just means someone has to pay a small fee to see them.

Where the information comes from

People-search sites are the public face of the data broker industry. Data brokers are companies that collect and sell personal information. Their sources include:

• Public records. Property records, court records, marriage and divorce records, business filings and professional licenses. In many states, voter registration files too.
• Commercial data. Magazine subscriptions, warranty cards, loyalty programs, change-of-address data and marketing lists that are bought and resold.
• Phone and address directories. Old phone books and their digital versions.
• Other brokers. Brokers buy from each other constantly, which is why the same details show up on dozens of sites at once.
• The open web. Some sites pull in social media profiles, photos and other public pages.

The site then matches all of this up. That matching is often wrong, which is why you might see a relative’s phone number on your listing, or a stranger with the same name mixed in.

Why it’s allowed

In the US, most of these records are public on purpose. Property and court records are open so people can check who owns what and how courts work. The law hasn’t caught up with what happens when all of it is gathered in one place and made searchable by name.

That’s starting to change. Several states have privacy laws that give residents the right to ask some companies to delete their data. California went further: its Delete Act created a free state service called DROP that sends one deletion request to every data broker registered in the state. If you live in California, it’s worth using, alongside opting out of individual sites.

Some groups have extra protections. Federal judges, for example, can ask for their home address to be taken off broker sites under the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act, and many states have similar rules for judges, election officials, police officers or survivors of domestic violence. See Privacy protections for public servants.

How to get off them

Almost every major people-search site has an opt-out page. The usual steps are:

1. Find the site’s opt-out or privacy page.
2. Search for your listing and pick the one that’s you.
3. Give an email address so the site can send a confirmation link.
4. Click the link to finish.

Some sites ask for a phone call, or for more details to confirm who you are. Give only what they ask for.

A few things make this harder than it sounds. There are a lot of these sites. Many list you more than once. Some are owned by the same company and share a single opt-out, while others don’t. And listings often come back later, because the site gets a fresh batch of data. See Why people-search listings come back.

Where to start

Don’t try to do every site at once. Start with the ones that show your current address and phone number for free, because those are what a stranger would use first.

Oko’s report does the sorting for you. It shows which sites list you, exactly what each listing shows, and which ones to opt out of first, with a link to each site’s own opt-out page and the steps for that site. With a report, you send each request yourself. With the removal plan, Oko sends them for you on the sites it can automate, and you do the few that need a phone call, ID or a CAPTCHA. Either way, a recheck later shows which listings are gone and which came back.