Clear Path step · Home · Your name stays yours
Remove your household from people-search sites
Why it matters: People-search sites publish addresses, relatives, phone numbers and ages, the exact details that make a scam call or fake emergency convincing. Less public detail means less believable scams.
Do it
- Search your own name and city to see which sites list you.
- If you live in California, file one deletion request through DROP at privacy.ca.gov/drop, which reaches registered data brokers.
- Elsewhere, use each site's own opt-out page, starting with the ones that show your phone number and relatives.
- Use an email alias for opt-out requests so they don't add your main address to more lists.
- Search again in three months; listings reappear.
Check it worked: You've requested deletion or opt-out from the major people-search sites, and California residents have filed a single request through the state's DROP platform.
Simply put
People-search sites are like a phone book that also lists your relatives, age and address. Scammers read it to make a fake call sound real; the less it says about you, the less believable they are.
In detail
California's Delete Act created DROP; other states have passed data broker registration laws, but most still rely on site-by-site opt-outs. Brokers' data also feeds AI tools that assemble profiles, so removal reduces what any one search can reconstruct.
Points toward the Long View: less raw material for AI tools that assemble profiles from public data.