Personal info eraser: Because your privacy can’t wait.

The record a people-data lookup returns for your phone number: a name, an age, current and past addresses, relatives, email addresses and other phone numbers, whichever of those it has. Each value is partly hidden, like “J***e C****r”, so you can recognise it without it being readable over your shoulder.

While you wait for the code, the code page shows how many exposures the lookup uncovered: the number of items of personal information in the record it found. The name and the age count one each, and so does every address (current or past), other phone number, email address and relative the record holds: all of them, including those the results list only as “+ 2 more” or “+ 3 previous”. That number is all you see before the code is in.

If a breach record ties a Social Security number to you, the check shows its last two digits and the breach it came from. Breach data can’t be deleted; removing your listings makes it harder to match to you.

If the lookup returns nothing, we say so. The risk level follows one fixed rule about what the record holds: high for a current address with an age, relatives or a Social Security number, medium for an address or relatives alone, low otherwise. We never show a count we didn’t get from the lookup.

From a commercial people-data provider: the kind of database that people-search sites draw on. We ask it one question, “what do you hold for this phone number?”, as soon as we’ve texted you the code (past a daily limit on these early lookups, once you’ve entered it). Until you’ve entered the code, and so proved the number is yours, all you see is how many items of personal information came back, never what they are. If we texted you a link instead, we ask once you’ve opened it. The record can be out of date, or belong to someone who had the number before you.

We don’t search each people-search site for you during the check. The result tells you what’s in circulation; the links next to it let you see each site’s listing yourself.

We use it for two things: to text you the code (or, in an app’s built-in browser on a phone, a one-time link), and to run the one lookup. During the check it’s kept in an encrypted cookie in your own browser that stops working after 30 minutes. If we text you a link, our server also keeps an encrypted copy of it, deleted as soon as you open the link (or within the hour after its 15 minutes run out). Our rate limits keep a scrambled fingerprint of it for up to a day so the same number can’t be checked over and over.

In an app’s built-in browser on a phone, your report opens in your phone’s own browser through a link, and our server keeps an encrypted copy of your number for that link (never anything from the lookup); it’s deleted within the hour after the link’s 30 minutes run out, or as soon as you tap for a new link. The lookup runs again in that browser.

We store it with an order only if you buy, because we need it to find and remove your listings. The companies that send the text and run the lookup receive the number to do that; the privacy page names them.

No. No list sales, and your number, name, email and check result never go to an advertiser. Your number goes only to the services that text the code and run the lookup. We do measure our own Facebook and Instagram ads with Meta’s pixel: it sees which of our pages were opened and whether a plan was bought, never what you type (how it works and how to turn it off). The check needs no name, no card and no account, and we never ask for your Social Security number. To start a removal we ask for an email address, and send you a summary there: what turned up and how many, never the details.

The result is held in an encrypted cookie in your browser for 30 minutes. Our servers store none of it. If you buy a plan, the details you confirm are sent encrypted to our operations mailbox to file your requests, and deleted 30 days after the last request is filed. Card details go straight to Stripe.

You choose. You can remove the listings yourself for free, with the links we give you. Or you can pick a plan, give us permission to act for you, and we file the first batch within 24 hours of receiving your details, and the rest within 7 days.

You get a progress update by email within 7 days. If we don’t file the first batch within 24 hours of receiving your details, you get your money back.

Because most of it was never secret. People-search sites typically build a page per person from public records, such as property and court filings, and from commercial sources, such as marketing lists and other data brokers. Put together, scattered details become one searchable profile.

In most of the US that is legal. So is asking for yours to be taken down: the big sites each run an opt-out page, and California gives its residents the right to have registered data brokers delete their data. This is general information, not legal advice.