How do I get my name and address off people-search websites?

People-search sites do not gather information by watching you. They buy and scrape it from a small number of identifiable sources, and removing yourself works far better when you cut off the supply as well as the display. Nothing here removes you completely, and it is worth being clear about which parts are permanent.

Safety

Step by step

1. Opt out of the open electoral register.There are two versions: the full register, used for elections and credit checking, which you cannot opt out of, and the open or edited register, which anyone can buy. Contact your council's electoral registration officer and ask to be removed from the open register. This is the biggest single source and the opt-out is free and permanent until you move.
2. Deal with the people-search sites individually.Sites such as the large UK directory and address-lookup services each have a suppression or removal form, usually buried in their privacy pages. You have a right under UK data protection law to object to processing and to ask for erasure, and citing that in the request tends to speed it up.
3. Check Companies House if you have ever been a director.Directors' service addresses are public. You can change a service address to a professional or accountancy address, and there is a separate application to suppress a residential address from public view where there is a risk to you. Both are done through Companies House.
4. Ask search engines to remove results exposing contact details.Google and Bing have specific removal routes for personal contact information appearing in results — home address, phone number, email. This removes the result, not the page, and there is a separate route to ask the site itself to remove the page.
5. Reduce what you supply going forward.Loyalty schemes, competitions, warranty registrations, free trials and charity forms all feed marketing databases. Where a field is optional, leave it blank; where consent boxes exist, decline sharing with third parties.
6. Use a subject access request where you want to know the source.You can ask any organisation for a copy of the data it holds and where it came from. It is free and they must respond within a month. That is how you find which broker sold your details onwards.
7. Register with the preference services.The Telephone Preference Service and the Mailing Preference Service do not remove your data but do make unsolicited marketing to you unlawful, which cuts the volume.
8. Set a reminder to re-check.Details reappear when a new dataset is bought or after a house move. Search your own name and address once or twice a year and repeat the removals that have lapsed.
9. Complain if a removal is refused.If a company ignores an erasure or objection request, complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. It is free and it is the enforcement route.

Tips

• Being on the open register also drives a large amount of physical junk mail. The opt-out cuts that as well.
• Opting out of the open register has no effect on your right to vote and no effect on credit applications, which use the full register. That misconception stops a lot of people doing it.
• Old electoral roll data already sold cannot be recalled, so sites will still list historic addresses. Objecting to those specific entries is a separate request to each site.

Common mistakes

• Paying a removal service before doing the free opt-outs — The electoral register opt-out and the search engine routes are free and remove more than most paid services achieve.
• Supplying extra identification to a broker to prove who you are — Some request far more than they need. Supply the minimum to match the record, and refuse requests for identity documents from sites you do not trust.
• Expecting complete removal — Court records, Companies House filings, professional registers, planning applications and old news are lawfully public. Manage those rather than expecting them to go.

Questions people ask