How to Remove Yourself from Background Check Websites

You need to learn how to remove yourself from background check websites.

Why? Because there’s something fundamentally wrong with background check websites.  They get our personal data through public record sources, like birth certificates, real estate purchase and sale records, lawsuits, marriage licenses, and even social media accounts–for free–and then they stockpile it, post it for the world to see, and sell it.  

Background check sites argue that they’re simply reposting public record information that already exists for anyone to access.  

In reality, they’re doing something completely different: they’re making all of our personal info more visible and more accessible than ever before. It’s not just a public record anymore; it’s super public. There’s a big difference between A) physically walking down to a courthouse and asking for a copy of a legal filing so you can find someone’s name and address from it and B) looking it up on a search engine from your couch.

For people with stalkers, a history of domestic abuse, a vindictive ex, or just a general interest in staying private, having their contact information (phone numbers, home addresses, etc.) so readily available isn’t just annoying; it’s dangerous.  

Getting personal data removed shouldn’t be as confusing and time-consuming as it currently is. Unfortunately, scrolling through long Terms of Use, privacy policies, and contact forms to find how to delete yourself, it becomes painstakingly obvious that many of these companies try to make it difficult to remove listings; after all, your data is their lifeblood.

Privacy laws have not caught up with this new reality yet. Lawmakers need to recognize that the super-public nature of these background check sites, aka people search websites, has strayed too far from our original concept of “public record,” and everything needs to be opt-in by default.  

If these companies want to profit off the facts that make us who we are–our names, ages, birth dates, addresses, and family members–we should have a say in that. And if we decide that it’s okay, we should see a cut of that profit. At the very least, these sites should have one uniform, simple, clearly-displayed opt-out method.

Until this happens, the burden is on us to play cat-and-mouse with these companies: we follow their convoluted rules and delete ourselves; they try to find us again.  

DeleteMe will do it for you if you want to save time, but if you’d rather do it yourself, see below for full instructions. If keeping your contact information private is important to you, please keep spreading the word to anyone you care about.

How to Remove Yourself from Background Check Websites

Click on each background check site for detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to remove your name from their database:

• Remove yourself from TruthFinder 
• Remove yourself from AdvancedBackgroundChecks
• Remove yourself from EasyBackgroundChecks
• Remove yourself from Background Report 360
• Remove yourself from Background Check Gateway
• Remove yourself from BackgroundCheck.Run
• Remove yourself from Arrests.org
• Remove yourself from CIA Data
• Remove Yourself from Find Out the Truth
• Remove yourself from Criminal-Records.org
• Remove yourself from Data Detective
• Remove yourself from Criminal Screen
• Remove yourself from CriminalSearches.com
• Remove yourself from Criminal Watch Dog
• Remove yourself from CriminalPages.com
• Remove yourself from DocuSearch
• Remove yourself from EasyBackgrounds.com
• Remove yourself from Inteligator
• Remove yourself from Intellicorp
• Remove yourself from Jail Alert
• Remove yourself from IntegraScan
• Remove yourself from Instant Background Report
• Remove yourself from Information Enterprises
• Remove yourself from Gov Background Checks
• Remove yourself from Free Background Check
• Remove yourself from Mughshots.com
• Remove yourself from Hero Searches
• Remove yourself from Smart Background Checks
• Remove yourself from BackgroundChecks.com
• Remove yourself from ArrestFacts
• Remove yourself from Sentry Link
• Remove yourself from USA Background
• Remove yourself from Verispy
• Remove yourself from Rapsheets.org
• Remove yourself from People Spy
• Remove yourself from People Background Check 
• Remove yourself from USSearch
• Remove yourself from Spokeo.com
• Remove yourself from Radaris
• Remove yourself from PeopleFinders.com
• Remove yourself from Intelius.com
• Remove yourself from Beenverified.com

Note: The removal process varies from one background check site to another; some will request that you fill out an opt-out form, while others may ask you to send an email or call them using contact details found on their opt-out page.

Going Beyond Learning How to Remove Yourself from Background Check Websites

Having your personal information so readily available online puts you at increased risk of harassment, identity theft, and other threats.

Unfortunately, the above are not the only websites where people can find information about you, from your full name, date of birth, and aliases to court records and bankruptcies. To see an even longer list of people search sites, including Whitepages.com, zabasearch, mylife.com, and instant checkmate, go to our guide, where we detail the opt-out process for some of the most popular data broker sites.

Remember: data broker sites relist people once they collect more information on them, so you need to make removal requests to these sites regularly. Don’t have the time? DeleteMe can send opt-out requests on your behalf on a continuous basis.