This post has been modified to reflect new information since its original publication.
There’s nothing enjoyable about businesses sharing your personal information for profit. The sad truth is that Intelius, an online data broker or “people-search site,” does just that. Your digital privacy is at risk unless you take steps to protect it.
Intelius collects publicly available records about you and compiles them into a single, comprehensive database.
In this post, we dive deep into Intelius—who they are, what they collect, and how you can remove unauthorized personal data they sell.
What is Intelius exactly and what does it collect?
Founded by former InfoSpace executives in 2003, Intelius was designed to facilitate personal and criminal background searches.
Information commonly available on Intelius includes your home addresses (past and present), phone numbers, age and date of birth, names of relatives, income, aliases, and court records.
Anyone who requests this information can access it by paying a small fee, with greater detail available at an additional cost.
The company offers products for both consumers and businesses.
How do they get your information?
Intelius scans white pages, yellow pages, newspaper articles, social networks, blogs, and public records databases, then compiles online profiles for the names mentioned within those sources.
The details contained in these profiles can range from basic identifying information, such as your phone number, to comprehensive histories that include bankruptcies, marriages, and criminal records.
Understandably, many people would prefer not to have this information easily accessible online.
Luckily, it is possible to opt out of Intelius and have your records removed, making it harder for identity thieves, stalkers, and other bad actors to find your personal information.
As a bonus, opting out will also remove your personal data from a number of related, Intelius-owned sites, including ZabaSearch and USSearch.
If you have the time, you can conduct the opt-out yourself. Alternatively, you can sign up for ReputationDefender’s ExecutivePrivacy solution, which automates the opt-out process and removes your personal information from dozens of similar sites as well.
Intelius offers several tiers of reporting:
- For $0.95 for a 5-day trial (then $35.30 per month after), you can perform a reverse phone lookup and people search. This includes details like date of birth, age, relatives, phone numbers, addresses, previous cities of residence, and more for each individual who shares a certain name in a specific state.
- Other products provide more extensive reports at a higher price. These reports deliver all the information mentioned above but may also include a single-state criminal check, marriage and divorce records, civil judgments, and death records.
How to get Intelius records removed
To get your information removed from Intelius, you’ll need to place a request for each record that refers to you. The process is as follows:
- Prove your identity: Make a copy of your driver’s license or state-issued identification card to send to Intelius. Before sending it, cross out your photo and license number. Intelius only requires proof of your name, date of birth, and address.
- Describe the record you want removed: Be precise about this, and submit the request in a written letter. Create a separate request for each name variation. For example, a request to remove “John Smith” won’t remove “John Q. Smith,” so you’ll need to request that both be removed.
- Send an email request: Send your inquiry to privacy@intelius.com.
- Wait: You should receive a response within four weeks.
- Monitor regularly: Even after you opt out, your information may reappear periodically. This happens because Intelius scans for new records automatically, and whenever something appears, it creates a new listing. The only way to prevent this is to have your original government records sealed, which may or may not be possible depending on your situation.
Five more ways to keep your data off people search sites
As a reminder, here are a few more tips to help you keep your data off people search sites:
- Manually opt-out: Visit each people search site and follow their opt-out procedures. This usually involves searching for your information on the site, finding the opt-out page, and submitting a request to remove your data. Sites like BeenVerified, Spokeo, MyLife, and Intelius often have specific instructions for opting out.
- Limit online sharing: Be cautious about the personal information you share online, especially on social media and forums. Reducing your digital footprint makes it harder for these sites to gather your data.
- Delete unused accounts: Close old online accounts and delete apps you no longer use, as they might be collecting and sharing your information with third-party data brokers.
- Adjust privacy settings: Regularly update the privacy settings on your social media accounts, browsers, and devices to restrict the sharing of your personal information.
- Use privacy services: Consider using privacy services like EasyOptOuts or Optery, which can help automate the process of removing your information from multiple people search sites. However, manual removal is often more effective.
It’s our duty to provide you with options that will be suitable for you. But consider that the tools explained in tip 5 only opt you out; they don’t monitor when sites re-add your information. For a more powerful and long-term solution with attention to detail, we offer a more comprehensive approach.
Automatic removal and ongoing monitoring
It takes considerable diligence to keep your personal information off Intelius and the dozens of other people-search sites out there. That’s why ReputationDefender developed ExecutivePrivacy, which handles removals for you across 900+ sites.
We then monitor regularly for any new records that might be associated with your name and have those removed as well.
We do all the work, so you can rest assured that your privacy stays protected.
If you want a head start on finding out what private information is accessible to others online when they search for your name, take advantage of our free online reputation report card. This tool instantly audits the entire internet and tells you what others see when they search for you, with all the details provided in an easy-to-read report.
Intelius is a trademark of Intelius, LLC.
or sign up for a free privacy scan.