Why Digital Privacy Protection Matters for Public Figures

Virginia Heffernan is a cultural critic and journalist who caught the attention of a media personality.

She thought she was “pretty unfindable.” Turns out, she wasn’t. In days, death threats and threats against her children filled her home mailbox and her email inbox. 

It’s hard to imagine how vulnerable you might feel in a similar moment, but unfortunately, this is the reality for thousands of public figures across the United States.

In Virginia’s case, however, DeleteMe became an important resource for preserving her privacy on and offline. She recently shared the full story on DeleteMe’s What the Hack? podcast, and it has a lot to tell about why you should care about digital privacy protection.

Why digital privacy protection matters

If you’re like me, you’ve probably said something similar to: “I thought I was pretty unfindable.” Or maybe you thought, “No one will come looking for me because I’m not THAT important.” But you don’t have to be a political official or a CEO to attract the attention of a vocal opposition. You just have to have an online voice and use it in a way that someone, somewhere doesn’t like.

If you do that, there’s a possibility you’ll get doxxed.

In our recent article on 2026 consumer data privacy predictions, we called out the prevalent risk of doxxing, in which someone decides your home address and other personal info should be public knowledge. The primary reason doxxing is such an easy route for malicious actors is thanks to data brokers.

Data brokers share sensitive details like your full name, phone number, home address, email address, birth date, and other personally identifiable information (PII). Anyone willing to pay can probably access your full profile and post that info on social media.

If someone does post your address and happens to go viral, suddenly anyone who doesn’t like what you have to say has easy access to you and, as Virginia found, your home mailbox. That’s when it starts to feel really vulnerable. A threat is just a piece of paper or an email — until it’s not.

How hard are you to find?

How do you know if you’re really unfindable? We have a full guide to doxxing yourself before the bad guys do, but there’s a good chance you’re at risk if:

1. You’re active on social media

A lot of data brokers scrape from social media to build profiles. If you’ve shared your birth date or location, you’re at risk. You may also have given away info on where you live if you’ve shared pictures of your home, street, or a nearby event or building.

2. You sign up for a lot of online services

Every time you sign up for a newsletter or the latest shopping deal, you share PII. A quick read-through of a privacy policy should tell you whether the service you’re signing up for will turn right around and sell your info to a data broker.

3. You’re listed on top people-search sites

If you search your name and the first thing that comes up is a listing on Whitepages or Spokeo, you’ve been exposed on people search sites. Your address is only a click away.

4. You apply to a lot of jobs

The job search struggle is real, and there’s a good chance you’ve blasted out hundreds of applications. But if your resume includes your phone number and home address, a data leak or a scammy job site can expose you online.

TLDR: If you’re active online, you’re findable. If you’re findable, you’re at risk. And once someone targets you, protecting yourself after the fact gets complicated fast.

Why law enforcement isn’t enough

When harassment upended Virginia Heffernan’s life, she did exactly what most of us would do: she reached out to the professionals.

The FBI and local law enforcement are important in these cases for a few reasons. One is that they can help you document a doxxing incident and create an official paper trail, which can help with investigations down the line. In addition, if threats start to escalate and get specific, there’s a chance these agencies can track and eventually even prosecute perpetrators under cyberstalking statutes and other legal avenues.

However, as Virginia discovered, there are inherent limits to what police can do regarding the source of the problem. While they can investigate a crime after it happens, law enforcement agencies are not “internet scrubbers.” The police couldn’t simply “make her less findable” or remove her home address from the dozens of databases that had already cataloged it.

This is the gap where digital privacy protection services can help, not as a replacement for law enforcement, but as a specialized tool to handle the vast, decentralized ecosystem of personal data that most agencies don’t address.

How does digital privacy protection work?

Digital privacy protection can take many forms. At DeleteMe, we focus on data broker opt-outs. That means that for someone like Virginia, we take a look at where people search sites share her profile and work to get that taken down. In Virginia’s case, relief came almost immediately. Sometimes, it takes a while, but data removal is a reliable way to reduce exposure online.

Simple, right? But there are a lot of misconceptions about how digital privacy protection works. One is that it has to be absolute to be effective. People think if there’s even one website that still has their name or address, then they’re completely unprotected. In reality, making it harder for bad actors to find or dox you is usually enough.

Less exposure = harder to find, and harder to find = a tougher target for would-be doxxers and other malicious actors.

Another misconception is that data removal is one-and-done. Data brokers commonly resell lists, so your profile may be back up within a few months. That’s why regular monitoring through a service like DeleteMe can make all the difference.

What about other digital privacy protection solutions?

In Virginia’s case, DeleteMe turned out to be the perfect option to protect her personal data. But data removal isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. There are a number of other types of digital privacy protection that may be worth a look, including:

1. Email and phone masking – A masked email address will forward messages to your true address without exposing other personal information associated with your email, like your name. You can deactivate the masked email or phone number at any time.
2. VPNs – A virtual private network (VPN) redirects your internet traffic to hide your actual location and IP address. Since your IP address is associated with a lot of info about you, a VPN can help prevent exposure. 
3. Password managers and 2FA – Poor password hygiene can lead to account takeovers and breaches that expose your name and other PII. Use a password manager and two-factor authentication whenever possible.

Everything starts with developing a mindset that prioritizes privacy — because privacy can directly impact your safety and peace of mind.

Digital privacy protection is only the first step

Sometimes, it feels overwhelming to manage your digital footprint, especially when it seems the internet knows more about you than you do. But as Virginia’s story shows, digital privacy protection can help create a buffer between your public voice and your private life. When you make yourself harder to find, you become a tougher target and take a step towards investing in your peace of mind.

Stay safe out there.

Learn more:

• Try our free scan to see whether you’re exposed online
• Learn how to keep your information safe so you can be a tougher target
• Learn more about doxxing risks and how to protect yourself online