Even if your Facebook profile is set to private and you’ve turned off targeted Google ads, your personal details may still be available online.
By scraping through public databases like the electoral roll, websites such as 192.com are able to collate your address, home phone number and more details all in one place. For a small fee, anyone can then discover a large amount of information about you that you may have considered relatively private.
So, if you’d rather people didn’t know how much you paid for your current property or other personal details, read on to find out what 192.com knows about you and how to delete your information from the internet.
What does 192.com know about me?
Register for an account with 192.com and you’ll be able to garner several key details about a person’s identity. Pay extra for one of the site’s ‘Background Reports’ and it claims to be able to provide (among other things) your:
- Full Address
- Age Guide
- Telephone Numbers
- Alive or Dead Status
- Neighbours
- Company Financials 2002-2013
- County Court Judgments
Since this information – which can also be obtained by other directories – comes from a variety of sources, deleting it requires some legwork. Fortunately, it’s not difficult to start taking action, as our tips explain.
Remove your personal details from the web – three key tips
1. Make your phone number ex-directory
To avoid having your phone number listed on websites, you need to contact your phone company to have yourself made ex-directory. This also means your number and address won’t appear in local telephone directories.
2. Get taken off the electoral register
The electoral register is where sites like 192.com garner the majority of your personal details. To erase yourself from its published incarnation, you’ll have to contact your local council or tick the relevant box on the annual voter registration form. This will also stop directory services accessing the information in future.
3. Submit a takedown request to 192.com
Information already collected and published by 192.com and its brethren will remain live until you request it be taken down. In the case of 192.com, you need to fill out its record removal form by printing it and then faxing or posting it back to the company. Clearly, an automated online form would have been just too convenient to use.