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Ep28: How to Delete Your Data from the Internet
Episode 28 • 27th August 2024 • Byte Sized Security • Marc David
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Safeguarding Your Identity: Essential Tools and Techniques

This episode focuses on the increasing dangers of data breaches and the various steps individuals can take to protect their personal information. Highlighting the threats posed by data breaches and data brokers, the discussion provides detailed reviews of free resources such as OperationPrivacy.com and Google’s 'Results About You' feature. These tools help users remove their data from major brokers and search engines. Additionally, the episode covers the importance and process of freezing your credit to prevent identity theft, emphasizing the use of password managers and two-factor authentication (2FA) for enhanced security.

00:00 Introduction: The Reality of Data Breaches

00:22 Understanding the Risks: How Your Data is Compromised

01:29 Adopting a Breach Mentality: Protecting Your Information

02:27 Operation Privacy: A Free Tool for Data Removal

06:41 Google Results About You: Managing Your Online Presence

10:15 Freezing Your Credit: An Essential Step

13:34 Conclusion: Taking Control of Your Data Security

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Transcripts

Speaker:

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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So, Take it to heart.

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Go check out the sites, go see what

information is out there about you.

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And remove yourself from these

places and freeze your credit.

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It's simple.

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It's easy.

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I'll put everything in

the show notes for you.

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What links to go to.

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Save your pans.

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You can unfreeze it any time.

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It doesn't matter.

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You can temporarily do it for a period

of days, hours, whatever, and then

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it will auto freeze back for you.

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And when you do that, you have

literally removed yourself from being

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that low hanging fruit of getting

identity theft and identity theft.

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Is not fun.

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It's painful.

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And then people I know that have

happened to is a very long process,

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and it's not something you want

to go through when it's easily.

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Avoidable.

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So password managers, right to a Fe

on accounts for using your credit,

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moving yourself and date of brokers,

you are going to be in really,

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really good shape going forward.

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Nothing's guaranteed.

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But you're going to be

in a lot better shape.

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Than most people out there.

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And unless you're a target where

someone actually really, really

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wants to go after you, most likely

they'll move onto somebody else.

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I hope you enjoy this podcast.

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Drop a note.

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You can email me, you can drop

a note or send us a review.

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That would be even more helpful.

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