We talk to Darius from Incogni, who tells us how you can remove your personal data from the internet. Plus, a family claims an Amazon driver stole their cat, people are yelling a lot at Siri, and there’s a new sober dating app.
Opt-Out Tuesday: How to remove your info from TruthFinder
People search sites advertise as services for finding people you’ve lost touch with.
These sites scrape personal information from local, state and federal public records, court records, social media, data brokers and forums. Tap or click here for detailed instructions for removing your information from these creepy sites.
For this entry in our weekly Opt-Out Tuesday series, we’ll show you how to remove yourself from TruthFinder.
Avoid people search sites at all costs, especially if it costs you
Don’t ever pay for any people search service. Most of these sites are scammy in nature. You may think you’re paying for one report and find that you’ve been roped into recurring charges.
Don’t pay to remove your information from any site. This process must be provided for free, as you can see in the steps below.
Do you have older relatives who may not know about these sites? While you’re opting out yourself, why not do the same for them? Just type in their information as you would your own, and follow our steps to completion.
RELATED: Protect your privacy, your cell phone number and email address
The truth about TruthFinder
TruthFinder has been around since 2015. The site advertises itself as a simple way to find public records online, including criminal or traffic records, contact information, employment and education history and social media accounts.
The site says that it helps “Americans reconnect with family and friends” by scanning hundreds of millions of records. But it doesn’t discriminate — crooks, hackers and scammers can access this information.
Deleting your data from TruthFinder
Opt-Out Tuesday: How to remove your info from PeopleSmart
When was the last time you searched for yourself online? There’s likely plenty of accurate information about you floating around the web that you didn’t know about, such as your full name, address, phone number, family history, employment information and more.
Tech smarts: How to know if someone blocked your calls
I have a rule: If writing an email will take longer than a few minutes, I make a phone call instead. It saves me a lot of time.
What happens when you want to call someone, and you’ve misplaced their number or never had their number? Tap or click for smart ways to find anyone’s cell phone number.