Law #14: Protect your personal information online to safeguard your financial health
The Law
Tracking your finances, saving, investing in assets, banking earnings from side hustles, and planning for retirement is all challenging work. Don’t risk all those efforts by failing to protect your personal information online. With the click of a few buttons and far less effort than you put into building your financial future, criminals can access enough personal details about you to wreak havoc on your personal and financial life. Leaving details like your address, email, phone number, and names of relatives online may give people enough details to impersonate you, apply for accounts in your name, and obtain other information like your social security or driver’s license numbers. Take precautionary steps to safeguard your information, remove it from online sources, and keep it from appearing online again.
Your Keys to Power
Hide search results about yourself on Google. The first place to start with addressing information about you online is hiding Google search results. Google updated its search policies in April 2022 to add removing home addresses and personal contact information to a previous policy regarding removing sensitive data such as credit card numbers and ID photos. You can ask Google to remove search results by filling out a request form. You’ll need to tell the platform the kind of information you’d like taken down, whether the data is being shared to expose you (doxing), the search terms you used to find the data, and the website address where the information is located.
Target information on websites. Beyond hiding search results returned in Google, you also need to request the removal of any information on the actual websites that host the information you want to keep private. Whenever you find a page with information you don’t want public, look for a contact page and reach out to the website if you feel safe and comfortable communicating with them. If you can’t find any contact information on the website, you can use a website registration database like this to try and find contact information. Know that sometimes the information in these databases will be incorrect, outdated, or nonexistent if the person who owns the website domain has chosen to restrict their own contact information. Go figure.
Opt out of “people search” engines. Opt out of sites that base their revenue model on sharing personal information about you like your telephone number, political affiliation, address, and more. These websites function as search engines specifically for people, and you’ll need to manually submit a request for your information to be removed from each one. Here are some popular examples of these sites:
The process to request removal varies for each of these sites but will generally involve these steps:
Search your name to find listings and copy the URLs
Find an online form, email address, or telephone number to request removal, which varies depending on the company
Request that the company remove the listing
If you have trouble figuring out how to communicate with any of these companies, look for the site’s policy page for information about how to get your listing removed.
Here is a link to a list of hundreds of opt-out forms, and this is a free DIY guide for how to opt out of websites if you need more guidance.
Search for and remove your details from digital libraries. Just when you think you’ve done everything above and you’re good to go, you now have to think about digital archives—website backups of old data. If you successfully remove your information through one of the above methods, it may still be indexed in a digital library and, thus, still accessible. Browse these sources for your information, and if you find personal details, contact the archive to request removal. Here is a list of some of the archives you may want to check:
Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine - considered the go-to source for website archives
UK Web Archive - for our UK subscribers
Use a service that removes your personal information from internet sites. Removing your information from as many sites as possible is indeed a task. You may want to engage professional support. Third parties like this and this can help you erase listings with your information and help monitor for new listings. With these options, you’ll also be able to avoid using your personal email address and phone number to submit opt-out requests.
Practical Application
Check frequently. The types of sites that list your information pull the details from public records like property taxes, utility bills, housing deeds, etc., so removing your listing once may not be sufficient. The listing might appear again whenever new information triggers a pull of data from the sources these websites aggregate. If you are concerned about privacy, schedule regular check-ins of your information or rely on a service to check frequently.
Set up Google Alerts. Setting up a Google Alert will help you track your details. You’ll receive a notification whenever a new search result surfaces with your name. Get creative with the alert parameters—try including your name plus your city or telephone area code. These additional parameters (beyond just your name) will be essential for anyone with a familiar name. Learn more about Google Alerts here.
Be even more diligent if you’re facing a physical threat. If you're at risk of physical danger or being pursued by someone, you may want to check for new listings more often, perhaps as often as monthly. Seek the advice of relevant authorities or legal counsel for more guidance on your specific situation.
Don’t stress out about what you can’t control. Some information is going to be out there. It’s the world we live in. If you’re not facing physical violence or threats, this desire for privacy, while totally understandable, might be less of a concern than it is to someone who has suffered abuse. If you aren’t under imminent threat, take a breath and work on this process with a clear, calm mind. It’s challenging work but worth it if this level of privacy is meaningful for you.
Get help if you need it. If privacy is important to you, but this work is too overwhelming, invest in a service to help you.
Authority
“Digital freedom stops where that of users begins... Nowadays, digital evolution must no longer be offered to a customer in trade-off between privacy and security. Privacy is not for sale, it's a valuable asset to protect.” - Stephane Nappo
“In the next three years, the value of data will increase, making it even more valuable than it is today. The more efficiently you store your data, the more benefits your business will see.” - Thomas Harrer
“Privacy is dead, and social media holds the smoking gun.” - Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable
“Getting information from the Internet is like taking a drink from a hydrant.” - Personal Computing Pioneer and Investor Mitchell Kapor
“Every ISP is being attacked, maliciously both from in the United States and outside of the United States, by those who want to invade people’s privacy. But more importantly they want to take control of computers, they want to hack them, they want to steal information.” - Darrell Issa, American Politician
“Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.” - John Perry Barlow
“Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.” - Marlon Brando
“If you put a key under the mat for the cops, a burglar can find it, too. Criminals are using every technology tool at their disposal to hack into people’s accounts. If they know there’s a key hidden somewhere, they won’t stop until they find it.” - Tim Cook
“Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for, in plain language, and repeatedly. I believe people are smart. Some people want to share more than other people do. Ask them.” - Steve Jobs
Our Vote
Protecting personal information is vital. I strive to practice all the options above; however, it can be very time-consuming to do it yourself. I recently decided to pursue a service whose commitment is to help ensure that my personal information stays personal and offline. I'd love to recommend the service, but I haven't been with it long enough to confidently recommend it. I do, however, generally recommend engaging with a paid service over doing something like this on your own, yet, I also support knowing how to do these things. If you know how to do it, you can step in and take care of something that a paid service may miss or that may be outside of the scope of what that service does. For those reasons, I recommend always doing your research and checking on your online results from time to time rather than putting things on autopilot just because you've contracted a paid service.
Reversal
There is no reversal to this law. Protecting personal information helps to protect you physically and your finances. People who go through the impact of identity theft report feelings of overwhelm, deep pain from loss, helplessness, rage, embarrassment, anger, and more. They may also suffer great financial peril. Protect your sanity and assets by being careful with what information is displayed about you publicly.