Ep28: How to Delete Your Data from the Internet

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With all the crazy things

that are going on out there.

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Your data is all over the internet.

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Most recently, there were 2.9 billion.

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Social security records.

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Breached.

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And who knows if they're on the dark

web or not, I'm sure that they are.

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And I'm sure that your number

has been out there previously.

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You take a social security

number with birthday.

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And social media profiles and all

the information on where you've

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lived and who you're associated with,

and you can create a pretty good.

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Dossier of who the person is and start

getting some more coveted information.

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Access to email with password breaches.

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All kinds of things, social security

tax information, like, you know,

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putting on a refund for somebody taxes.

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And at some point, you're thinking.

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Well, I've got a.

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I've got a, you know, a password

manager, I've got to a fan, I've got

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all these sinks and that's great.

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You're doing everything.

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If you're doing that.

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You're doing everything that

you can to secure your data.

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In the best way that you know, how,

and that's using all the tools that

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are available to you and that's great.

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And then you rely on the company

that's storing that data.

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To do the right thing.

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And of course it doesn't matter

how secure your password is and

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to a Fe and everything else.

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If the company that storing your data gets

breached and that stuff gets out there.

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There you go right.

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So, what can you do?

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Well, You can't do a lot about

companies being breached.

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There's only a couple of ways

you could think about this one.

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Just assume a breached mentality.

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Everything that I put on the internet

when I'm signing up for service.

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It's going to be breached.

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It's going to get out there.

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So.

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What kind of information

do I want out there?

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Do I really want to use my real name,

my real address and all this kind

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of stuff now for government sites?

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You're going to have to do that.

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But for other sites like

shopping and things, you don't

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have to do that you can use.

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Different PO boxes.

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You can use a different name

associated with your address.

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So that gets more confusing

to these data broker sites.

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They don't really know who

lives there because there's

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maybe 10 people that live there.

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But let's say you don't.

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Let's say you don't want to do that.

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That's taking it more

privacy minded, more extreme.

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A lot of people like to do that.

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Me included and that's perfectly fine.

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Well, let's say you don't want to do that.

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What, what can you do?

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Well, the first thing you can do is,

and I'm going to list this in the show.

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Notes is a site called

operation privacy.com.

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Operation.

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privacy.com.

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And you'll be able to do most

everything on there for free.

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And there is a sort of an extreme.

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Subscription, which is $9 a year.

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And that's, you know, for serious people,

anonymizing utilities, planting your

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flag, all these hardcore concepts, but

for the more conscious minded person,

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the person who wants to remove themselves

from data brokers and the big sites.

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It'll be free.

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It's crowdsource.

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It's self-managed, there's a bunch

of tasks to get a privacy score.

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It's proactive monitoring,

it's private and secure.

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They don't store any

information about you.

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You can read the blog or the

FAQ and their transparency.

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And the reason that I'm telling you

about this is you're going to hear

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a lot of sites, like delete me.

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Or one wrap and all these other

places that are going to charge

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you to basically do the same thing.

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Go out there scour the main places where

your data is stored on these broker sites.

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Real estate and whatever.

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And attempt to remove you.

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They'll go to the source and they'll

put it under request and I'll try

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to get you removed from there.

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And when you start getting removed

from these main data brokers and opt

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out lists, you're going to notice that

you're going to just start disappearing

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from all the smaller ones too.

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That's usually how it works.

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Great.

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If you've got a website and it

doesn't exist in Google, then pretty

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much it doesn't exist anywhere else.

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Now it's not a hundred percent true.

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But for the most part.

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If you can get yourself off the main

data, broker data retrieval sites.

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You'll start to disappear

pretty much everywhere else.

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And why would you want to do that?

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Well, it was a number of reasons.

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Maybe you're a more

privacy conscious person.

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Maybe you don't, maybe you've

had problems with stockers.

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Maybe you just don't want where

you live and your address and all

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your phone numbers and everything

else out there and how much you

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make and all these weird things.

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Maybe just don't want

that out there anymore.

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Maybe don't want to be that

low-hanging fruit that actually

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gets picked off because someone

knows enough information about you.

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To do something with it.

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So you could go over to

operation privacy.com.

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You can sign up with whatever

username, with whatever password

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you want put to a Fe on it.

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You don't need to subscribe with

an email address or anything

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unless you want notifications.

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Otherwise, you can just

log in the dashboard.

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And I know it's a little confusing.

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And it will be.

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Because it's not a service that's

being, you know, offered to you at

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a price where they've got a team

and a crew doing all this stuff,

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but it's relatively self-explanatory

once you start clicking around.

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And all your main goal is.

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I go to these different sites,

go to the opt-out links.

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And find your information on the sites if

they exist and then put in a request to

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opt out and remove it from those sites.

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So that's operation privacy.

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In a nutshell, I've done some

videos on this before sort of

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tutorials how to use the site.

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But it's not going to cost you anything.

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Most of the other sites that will

do this type of work for you.

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And it's about $129 for

an individual per year.

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And you're always going

to be popping up on stuff.

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Right.

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So just because you've removed yourself

from a data broker doesn't mean you're

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never, ever going to appear there again.

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That's just simply not true.

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So operation privacy is

a great place to start.

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If you're into self-managed task

weighted and you want to do it yourself.

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And I think that, to be

honest with you, you should.

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I take that route.

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So you have more control of what goes on.

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There's no rush to remove yourself.

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But it gives you a really good idea

of, Hey, where am I out there on

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these different sites on the internet?

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What information do they have on me?

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And can I opt out of this and

get out of this kind of stuff?

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So it's kind of good to do it yourself.

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There's no rush.

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It's tedious.

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It takes awhile and that's

why it's sort of self-managed.

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And you've gotten a nice dashboard, so

you can just slowly go through over time.

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And I will say, after doing this

myself, The once you've gone through

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the major sites, at least once all

the major ones, you just pretty much

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disappear and occasionally you'll pop

up somewhere, but you can move yourself

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quickly and easily and you're gone again.

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So it's not a big deal.

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The second place I want to tell you

about is Google came up with this thing.

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I'm not sure when, but it's

called Google results about you.

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I know Google evil, right?

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Look, if you've got a Google

account, you should use this.

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If you don't have a Google account.

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Good for you.

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Maybe you could create a sock puppet,

like a fake Google account just to

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use it, to use their search engine.

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To find out what do they know about you?

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Like they're looking on their search

engine for criteria that you put in.

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And then telling you where

on the internet it found it.

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And would you like it?

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Would you like Google to

remove you from those results?

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In addition, you can actually know where

the source is and you can re try to

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remove yourself from the source as well.

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And that site is my

activity dot, google.com.

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Again, my activity.

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Dot google.com.

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You will have to have an account

in order to log into that free

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account, of course, but you do have

to have something associated with

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Google in order to log into it.

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Once you do that.

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It doesn't cost anything.

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You're going to see the settings

and that's just notifications.

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And what kind of, what adds some names.

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Someone might be used to find your

contact info, like a maiden name

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or a nickname, and then you can add

personal information, like, you know,

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include any current or past addresses

at any phone numbers in there.

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You know, current phone numbers,

including area codes associated

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with you, and then any email that's

associated with you current or past.

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And what that eventually does is

Google goes out every day and it checks

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for those things that you've said.

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And if it finds something that

matches it or very closely matches it.

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It will pull up in the all requests

that it's found something about you.

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You can take a look at where it has

found you, it gives you the source, the

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information of, of where this was found.

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And then you can remove it from

the source if you want it to,

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or you could just ask Google to

remove it from their search engine.

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And if it's not on the search

engine, Chances are it'll start

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getting removed from others because

a lot of other search engines just

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subscribed to what Google has.

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So that would be the easiest way.

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Get yourself out of the search engine.

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That would be an easy way to do

it, but they do give you where

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they found it in the source.

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And then just like operation privacy, you

could dig down into the source and see

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if you can remove yourself from there.

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And again, these are two very useful, very

free resources to see what's out there.

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Now, if you want, there's no limit.

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So you could put in other information.

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If you're doing this for a spouse

or somebody else, maybe you have

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a Google account, but your spouse

doesn't or your child doesn't, then

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you could add in information about

them as well, and see, Hey, is Google

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finding anything on these people?

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And then attempt to remove

them from there as well.

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So it's, it's just an, it's

a nice way to keep track of

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whatever results did it find.

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What have you reviewed?

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What's in progress what's approved.

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What was denied?

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And all your requests,

whether they're done.

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Uh, been approved or not.

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You could always go out and search for

this kind of stuff, set up alerts and

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Google to do the same exact type of thing.

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But what they've done is made

it into a really nice dashboard.

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That's easy to find.

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And then easy to remove yourself

from the search engines as well.

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So between operation privacy.

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And.

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Google results about you.

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You really will have a handle.

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On that information.

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That you need in order to remove

yourself now, let's, what's that last

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final step that everybody talks about.

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It's freezing your credit.

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Right.

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If you want to go ahead and

actually freeze your credit.

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That's super simple and easy to do.

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You're going to find that at operation

privacy, they're going to give you.

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They will give you the information

on where to specifically go.

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In order to freeze your credit.

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I'll put the links in the show notes.

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But if you can get yourself off of

Experian and TransUnion, And those

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type of places as those data brokers.

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You will remove your, you will

freeze your credit, meaning.

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You're going to get an additional

pin number that only you will have.

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And so if someone were to have enough

information to pull your credit, Or

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put any required credit requests.

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I need to get a credit credit card.

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That credit agency doesn't provide

that entity requesting anything back.

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And so that entity isn't

able to open the credit card.

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And they're going to

want you to unfreeze it.

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Well, if it's really you, then you're

going to know how to unfreeze it.

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Cause you've got the pen and

the site to go do it from

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that, from the credit brokers.

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If it's not, you.

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Then they can't unfreeze it because

they don't have that additional pin.

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That's required beyond all the information

they already do have on you to do it.

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So freezing our credit is like,

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You've just got to do it.

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I'm sorry.

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It's free.

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It's easy.

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There's three sites you've done.

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It's it's not that big of a deal.

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Uh, people in the past, I think

it was more of a big deal because.

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You know, it took a lot longer to do.

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They would charge you $10

to, to go ahead and do that.

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And then it would charge

you more money to, you know,

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undo it and things like that.

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But that's not the case anymore.

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So if you're out of Equifax, Experian,

TransUnion, You get yourself out of

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those, you freeze your credit on those.

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You really are going to

be in pretty good shape.

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Now if you're thinking.

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Yeah, but I get these, I rotate

credit cards a lot, or I want

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offers there's a credit card offer.

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I really want to take.

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And I can't apply online.

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It won't let me do it.

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That's totally true.

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But if you've applied online during

that deadline, You're going to get an

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E you'll either get an email or most

likely an actual physical letter to your

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house saying that they weren't able to

unfreeze your credit, call this number

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once you unfreeze the credit and whatever.

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Credit bureau or they're trying

to do just temporarily, even

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just very quickly over the phone.

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Then you could go ahead and get

whatever credit card you want.

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And I've done that before,

where I thought I was going to

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miss out on a particular offer.

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And that's actually not true because

I applied for the offer online during

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the deadline period, I was still

eligible, even though it wasn't able

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to actually authorize me online.

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I got a letter about four days later, I

called the number I and froze what they

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wanted while they were on the phone.

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They looked it up and

said, you're good to go.

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I got that credit card in that offer.

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No big deal.

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It just took a little bit extra time.

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But you still qualify for all

those types of things because you

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did it during the time period.

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So if you're someone who, you

know, Instant gratification.

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I didn't know immediately.

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And I want to do it online.

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Well, You could go on freeze your credit

at those three bureaus because you don't

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know what it is and then do it that way.

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Or you could simply just apply

and wait for the letter, call

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the number and do it that way.

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It's up to you.

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But between those two

operation privacy.com.

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And my activity.google.com.

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You will have a really good way

to figure out what is out there on

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the internet about me, you know,

phone numbers, addresses places.

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I've lived, things like that.

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And then how can I remove

them from the search engine?

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And further, how can I

remove it from the source?

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Because if it's not at the source and

it's not likely to get back into the

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search engines, That's what you, that

is what people are trying to say.

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For you to do at this point.

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It doesn't take a lot of

technical ability to do this.

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It's just simply going to a couple

of websites and just start scouting

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around and seeing what's out there

about yourself and moving yourself.

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It's if nothing else, it's more time

consuming and tedious to do that.

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But there really is.

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No excuse not to do it.

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It's getting worse.

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You know that it's, it's been

getting worse this whole time.

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It, it just is, and it always will.

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And all the people who

are low hanging fruit.

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Their kids are going to get, you know,

Uh, credit reports pulled on them, right.

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They don't really have a credit

history, but if you can start

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out with the basic credit card.

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With information on a child and now

you've got a credit card in their name.

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Right.

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You're going to fly under that

parent's radar for like 18

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years before they realized, Hey,

let's open some credit for you.

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And then realize that their kid has had

credit outstanding for the last 15 years.

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And it's not good.

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It does happen.

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It does.

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And that's not something that

you want to see happen to anybody

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that you, that you care about.

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: 00:15:04

So, Take it to heart.

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: 00:15:06

Go check out the sites, go see what

information is out there about you.

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: 00:15:11

And remove yourself from these

places and freeze your credit.

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: 00:15:15

It's simple.

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: 00:15:17

It's easy.

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: 00:15:18

I'll put everything in

the show notes for you.

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What links to go to.

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: 00:15:22

Save your pans.

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: 00:15:23

You can unfreeze it any time.

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: 00:15:25

It doesn't matter.

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: 00:15:26

You can temporarily do it for a period

of days, hours, whatever, and then

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: 00:15:30

it will auto freeze back for you.

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: 00:15:32

And when you do that, you have

literally removed yourself from being

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: 00:15:35

that low hanging fruit of getting

identity theft and identity theft.

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: 00:15:41

Is not fun.

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: 00:15:42

It's painful.

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: 00:15:43

And then people I know that have

happened to is a very long process,

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: 00:15:46

and it's not something you want

to go through when it's easily.

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: 00:15:50

Avoidable.

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: 00:15:51

So password managers, right to a Fe

on accounts for using your credit,

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: 00:15:58

moving yourself and date of brokers,

you are going to be in really,

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: 00:16:01

really good shape going forward.

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: 00:16:03

Nothing's guaranteed.

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: 00:16:05

But you're going to be

in a lot better shape.

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: 00:16:08

Than most people out there.

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: 00:16:09

And unless you're a target where

someone actually really, really

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: 00:16:13

wants to go after you, most likely

they'll move onto somebody else.

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: 00:16:16

I hope you enjoy this podcast.

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: 00:16:19

Drop a note.

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: 00:16:21

You can email me, you can drop

a note or send us a review.

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: 00:16:27

That would be even more helpful.