TruthFinder Opt-Out Guide: How To Actually Remove Your Data

Can You Remove Your Personal Data From TruthFinder?

TruthFinder.com is a people search site that collects and shares data about individuals in the United States. Anyone — from telemarketers and government agencies to potential scammers — can use this service to run background checks on you by searching for your full name, phone number, email address, or home address.

People search websites like TruthFinder not only present a privacy risk — they can also threaten your safety online. 

PeopleConnect, the owners of TruthFinder and Instant Checkmate, suffered one of the largest data breaches in 2023 when personal data from ~20 million customers was leaked online [*].

TruthFinder scrapes and collects data from billions of public records and data broker databases to create comprehensive reports about anyone who uses the internet. On TruthFinder, someone could potentially discover your:

• Contact information 
• Criminal records, including arrest records
• Financial information
• Court records, including public data and death records
• Social media profiles
• Internet activity 
• And much more…

Unfortunately, removing your personal information from TruthFinder isn’t as straightforward as the company would have you believe. 

In this guide, we’ll provide a step-by-step guide on how to opt out of TruthFinder and prevent the company from continuing to collect, share, and put your personal data at risk. 

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How To Remove Your Personal Data From TruthFinder

The TruthFinder website offers two different opt-out processes for people whose personal information it collects:

• Suppress your data. This option prevents people from using TruthFinder to access your information through the service. It does not delete your data from its database, though.
• Delete your data from TruthFinder’s database. This option deletes all of the information TruthFinder has collected about you. However, it also removes your suppression requests, meaning TruthFinder can simply re-add you to its database later on.

Each TruthFinder opt-out option has its benefits and drawbacks. If you choose to suppress your data, it may still end up for sale on the Dark Web if TruthFinder suffers a data breach. If you delete your data entirely, you may have to regularly repeat the process in order to stay safe.

TruthFinder may also create a second profile for you, which can make your suppression or deletion requests useless.

A third option is to sign up for an automatic data broker opt-out service like Aura that will continually scan TruthFinder and other data broker sites for your information — and then automatically send takedown requests on your behalf. This way, if TruthFinder re-adds your information or creates a second account by using your name, it will be found and deleted.

Note: If you are a resident of California, Virginia, Connecticut, Utah, or Colorado, state data privacy laws give you additional choices to opt out of TruthFinder. For example, you may be able to add a “Do Not Sell” tag to your data. Use TruthFinder’s Data Privacy Center to navigate to the specific deletion and suppression rules unique to your state.

How to suppress your personal data on TruthFinder

To suppress your personal data, you’ll have to opt out by using a tool provided by PeopleConnect, the company that owns TruthFinder.

• Navigate to suppression.peopleconnect.us/login.
• Enter your email address and read through the privacy terms.
• Hit Submit and check your email inbox for a confirmation message.
• Click the Verify Email link to confirm your email.
• Enter your name and email address, and click on Save.

After completing these steps, you can verify the results by going back to PeopleConnect’s Suppression Tool and checking the Visibility Setting. It should show your information as Suppressed.

How to delete your data from TruthFinder

You can also use PeopleConnect to delete your data permanently from TruthFinder. However, this will also delete any previous suppression requests you’ve made. 

Here’s how to delete your data from TruthFinder: 

• Navigate to PeopleConnect’s Privacy Center.
• Scroll down to the section titled Right to Delete.
• Enter your email address, and select Delete My User Data.
• You will receive a confirmation email. Open the message and click on the link that says permanently delete your account data.
• A confirmation page will pop up. You should receive an additional email confirming your choice.

If you run into problems completing these steps, you can also request removal manually by writing to privacy@peopleconnect.us or by calling the company at 888-245-1655.

How to prevent Truthfinder from re-adding your personal information

The best way to completely remove your data from TruthFinder is to delete your data and then sign up for a data broker removal service. These services continuously scan data broker lists and submit takedown requests on your behalf.

Importantly, these services also submit takedown requests to third-party data broker sites that share information with TruthFinder. 

Since TruthFinder aggregates data from multiple sources, permanently deleting your information from the platform means submitting takedown requests with each and every data source that the service relies on.

How To Keep Your Private Data Off of Data Broker Lists

Removing your personal information from the internet is the best way to reduce the risk of being targeted by scammers and hackers. Giving data brokers and whitepages websites (like Spokeo and Intelius) less information to sell makes you a less prominent target.

Here’s what you can do to keep your personal information private: 

• Limit what you share with services and companies. Data breaches can do serious harm to your online privacy and safety. The less information you share with services — especially your phone numbers, financial details, etc. — the safer you’ll be in the event that their databases are breached. 
• Remove your personal information from Google searches. Search Google for your name, phone number, and other sensitive information, and then submit a Personal Data Removal Request to have your data removed from search results. Note: this won’t delete your personal information, but it will ensure that it doesn’t show up in search results. 
• Tighten your social media privacy settings. Make sure your social media profile does not share data about you to the public. Even seemingly unimportant details like your date of birth or hometown should be kept private.
• Delete old accounts. Old e-commerce accounts and social apps may give scammers and fraudsters information about you. Deactivating these accounts and reducing the visibility of your previous purchases gives hackers fewer pieces of data to use against you.
• Reduce your digital footprint. You can reduce your digital footprint by submitting individual requests to websites that publish information about you. Using a virtual private network (VPN) to browse the internet dramatically reduces the amount of information websites can gather on you.
• Sign up for data breach notifications. If a website or service you use suffers a cyberattack, your information may be at risk. You need to know the moment this happens so that you can start strengthening your online security and changing your passwords.
• Remove your data from direct marketing and telemarketing lists. Direct marketers can make money by selling their lists to data brokers. Removing your information from these lists and placing your name on the National Do Not Call Registry makes you less likely to encounter spam.
• Use email aliases and other “data masking” tools. Use your primary email address for friends, family, and professional colleagues. Whenever you register for a new service or website, use a secondary email address or a disposable temporary email account.

Preventing data brokers from gaining access to your information can be challenging — but an all-in-one digital security service like Aura can make it much easier. Aura protects your privacy, identity, and finances with a valuable suite of Privacy Tools that reduce junk mail and eliminate spam.

In addition to automatic data broker opt-outs, Aura provides you with a military-grade VPN, high-quality antivirus software, and award-winning identity monitoring. If the worst should happen, every Aura member has access to 24/7 U.S.-based White Glove Fraud Resolution support.