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Opt-Out Tuesday: How to remove your info from Intelius
When was the last time you searched for your name online? It’s a little eerie to click through the results. You’ll find some things are just plain wrong, but there’s likely plenty of accurate information about you floating around the web that you never realized.
Crooks, hackers and scammers can access this information as easily as anyone else. Tap or click here for instructions on removing your information from these dangerous sites.
So, where does all this info come from? An entire network of websites keeps tabs on you and offers the data to the highest bidder. If you care about online privacy, deleting yourself from these sites is a great place to start. For this week’s Opt-Out Tuesday, we’ll show you how to remove yourself from Intelius.
Avoid people search sites at all costs, especially if it costs you
Don’t ever pay for any people search service. Most of these sites are scammy in nature. You may think you’re paying for one report and find that you’ve been roped into recurring charges.
Don’t pay to remove your information from any site. This process must be provided for free, as you can see in the steps below.
Do you have older relatives who may not know about these sites? While opting out yourself, why not do the same for them? Just type in their information as you would your own, and follow our steps to completion.
RELATED: Data-hungry apps: These are the worst for your privacy
Intelius is part of a larger network
Intelius is one of the more prominent data brokers on the web. It is part of PeopleConnect, which has several people search sites under its purview, such as TruthFinder, InstantCheckmate and US Search. All these sites and more now use the same opt-out processes.
The old opt-out link for Intelius is broken, so you’ll need to use the PeopleConnect suppression tool. Let’s start there:
- Go to suppression.peopleconnect.us/login.
- Enter your email address, read through the privacy policy and terms of service and hit Submit.
- Check your inbox for a confirmation email from no-reply@verifications.peopleconnect.us. Tap the Verify Email button in the message.
- Enter your name and email address and scroll down and hit Save when you’re done.
- Go back to the top of the page and select the Suppression Setting tab and wait for your information to show up.
- If the information matches yours, select the Visibility Setting dropdown menu and select Suppressed.
- If you can’t locate your information, select the Identity tab at the top to go back to the previous page.
- Hit the Edit Identity button and enter more information, such as another email address you use. Verifying more of your information may help to locate your matching profile on the site.
NOTE: PeopleConnect pushes the suppression tool as the best way to stop people from finding you on its sites, but there is also an option to delete. Before you do so, know that PeopleConnect states that deleting your data will also delete your suppressions.
With that in mind, here’s how to delete your data:
- Go to suppression.peopleconnect.us/privacy-center and scroll down to the Right to Delete section.
- Enter your email address (if you followed the suppression steps above, your information may already be in the system and you won’t have to enter your email address again).
- Hit the Delete My User Data button. You’ll get a message saying you have to complete the process via a link in your email.
- Check your inbox for a message from privacy@verifications.peopleconnect.us. Tap the link at the bottom to permanently delete your account data.
- You’ll be taken to a confirmation page. Keep an eye out for another email message confirming your deletion.
NOTE: If you’ve already gone through the PeopleConnect deletion process for Intelius or another site, you’ll get an email stating there is no record associated with your email.
If you have trouble completing these steps or need more information, write to privacy@peopleconnect.us or call 888-245-1655.
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Tags: data brokers, hackers, Intelius, opt-out, Opt-Out Tuesday, people-search sites, PeopleConnect, privacy, security, suppression tool
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