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Data brokers want to take away your digital privacy. They collect, aggregate, and sell your personal information, which can lead to spam messages, strangers knowing who your mom is, and an overall invasion of privacy.
You may not even know that data brokers are silently watching your online and financial transactions to build a profile on you, often without your consent.
Yet you're not totally powerless against data brokers. Keep reading to learn more about how data brokers collect your data and what data removal services you can use to protect your privacy.
Data brokers gather your personal information from various sources to create a detailed profile of you. They collect data from public records and online behavior. Data brokers then analyze and sell your personal information to third parties. All of this data collection is done without your explicit consent.
It's not illegal, but it does lead to several privacy risks. Data brokers create issues like possible identity theft, invasion of digital privacy, and unwanted advertising.
There are different types of data brokers. Let's explore the most common types and demystify what they do.
People search sites make it easy to look up someone's name and find personal information like birthdays, possible relatives, maiden names, past addresses, property records, bankruptcy information, and social media profiles. Searchable databases can help you find people you know, but many may find the detailed profiles an invasion of privacy.
Data brokers often collect your data to sell to organizations for marketing and advertising purposes. Brokers create profiles with a person's purchasing behavior, interests, income, and other data. Marketers use the information to create targeted advertising, make spam calls, or send junk emails.
Financial information brokers (also known as risk mitigation brokers) focus on assessing the financial risk of an individual or organization. All three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — are risk mitigation brokers. They collect data on your financial history to create a credit report and determine your creditworthiness.
Health privacy laws like HIPAA don't apply here. Health brokers have found ways to collect information on a person's health and sell it to healthcare companies. Insurance providers can use the information to determine how much coverage you receive.
Even the most cautious web user can still have their personal information taken by data brokers. Here are a few ways data brokers can obtain your data:
Data brokers are problematic since they often collect personal data without a person's explicit consent. People are often unaware of how much their private information is available on the internet.
On top of the lack of privacy, data is often exploited by advertisers, insurance providers, and financial organizations. A person may also face an increased likelihood of identity theft or phishing scams.
However, deleting your information from data brokers is possible. It can help you maintain more control over your privacy and security.
Data brokers aren't happy when you ask them to remove your information from their databases. They make the removal process difficult in the hopes that you will give up. Since there are thousands of data brokers, it's challenging to send thousands of removal requests.
Here are some tips to remove your personal information from data brokers.
It's time consuming to go to each data broker and determine if they have your data. A more focused approach is to search your name, phone number, and address. The results reveal a list of data brokers with your personal information.
You can also request data removal from the most popular data brokers. Take a look at these data brokers:
You may also want to look at data broker registry lists to see which ones operate in your area. California has a data broker registry, but you can also check out Privacy Rights' Data Brokers and look for your state.
To request data removal, go to the data broker's website and look for a section called Opt-Out Requests, Do Not Sell My Personal Information, or something similar.
For Acxiom, a popular data broker, we had to scroll to the bottom of the website to find "Do Not Sell My Personal Information." Once we clicked the link, we were led to an opt-out form.
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The opt-out form requires information like mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and your full name. Acxiom needs this information to identify your profile correctly and remove the information. You'll also receive a confirmation email to verify your request.
Sometimes, the data removal process can get complicated. Data brokers may request additional information, require you to create an account, or need a copy of your state-issued ID to confirm your identity. Each data broker has a different process for data removal requests.
Data broker removal is not a one-and-done process. Data brokers can continue to collect new data and then upload it to their databases. You should submit data removal requests at least every three months to keep your data off the databases.
It's a huge task to routinely remove your personal information from data broker sites. There are a few tools you can use to help you. Some of them provide guidance for manual removal.
The process to manually manage requests with a data removal service usually looks like this:
There are premium data removal services that can do the work for you and automatically send data removal requests on your behalf. This is a convenient way to ensure your digital privacy without it taking up a lot of your time.
Data removal services can help individuals streamline the time-consuming process of opting out from hundreds of data brokers. They will continuously monitor data broker sites for your information and help you remove them. Data removal services provide ongoing privacy protection. Here are a few low-maintenance data removal services to consider:
Data brokers collect, aggregate, and share detailed information about consumers. They often license or sell this information to businesses for marketing purposes. The practice raises questions about data privacy since consumers have little control over their data.
A data broker removal service detects your personal information on data broker databases. Depending on the service, you submit a data removal request with the broker manually or the removal service will do it on your behalf. A data broker removal service can empower consumers to reduce their digital footprint.
Data broker removal is worth it for people who prioritize digital privacy. Data removal can help stop unwanted solicitations like spam emails and robocalls. It may also help reduce the risk of someone stealing your identity and provide tools for identity theft protection.
Begin by identifying which data brokers have your information. Then visit their websites to fill out an opt-out form. You may need to provide personal information so they can remove the correct profile. Alternatively, you can sign up for a data broker removal service that scans for data brokers with your information and even request a removal on your behalf.
Data brokers build a profile with your personally identifiable information, financial assessments, and shopping behavior. Marketers use this data to identify your interests and bombard you with spam emails and calls. Data brokers can also create people search sites that make it easier for people to discover your personal details, like past addresses.
Removing your information from data broker sites will help improve your digital privacy. It's possible to manually request data removal from each data broker site. However, some of the best data removal services can do this automatically with little to no effort from you. Using a service can help claim your digital footprint by proactively safeguarding your identity.
Removes your data from the web to avoid scams, spam and stalkers
100+ million successful opt-out removals
Provides continued removals every three months
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