Removing personal data from the internet and protecting your privacy

Your personal information can work against you. Removing personal data from the internet matters not only for public figures but also for entrepreneurs, authors, experts, doctors, lawyers, coaches, consultants and business owners. Today a single search query is enough for a stranger to find a phone number, an old email address, a home address, registration details or fragments of documents. Most often this information appears online not because you wanted to publish it. It can reach the public domain through old forms, databases, registers, company websites, archived pages or third-party platforms. This is why privacy has long since become part of personal safety and of a professional reputation.

The following can be publicly available:

• a phone number;
• an email address;
• a home address;
• passport or registration details;
• business data;
• old forms, registers and databases;
• mentions in website archives;
• comments on forums;
• publications with incorrect or outdated data.

And it can be used by:

• competitors;
• fraudsters;
• ill-wishers;
• journalists;
• former partners;
• anonymous commenters;
• people gathering information in order to apply pressure.

It is especially dangerous when separate pieces of information add up to a single picture. On its own a phone number may be an insignificant detail. On its own an old address may not look critical either. But together with a place of work, business data, social media and public mentions it already forms a digital profile of a person. And that profile can be used in ways that do not favour you.

Why this is critical for experts and entrepreneurs

For an entrepreneur or an expert, reputation often counts for more than advertising. A person may have strong experience, a quality product and a sound public position, yet random data in Google will create the wrong impression. An old phone number on a dubious website, outdated company information or an archived page with incorrect details can all look unprofessional. Online reputation management therefore starts not only with good publications but also with clearing away an unwanted digital footprint. If you:

• are building your own brand,
• run a business,
• are stepping into the public eye,
• work with clients,
• publish expert content,
• sell consultations, courses or services,
• plan to scale your reputation,

then your openness is also your risk.

Personal data can:

• reduce your level of security;
• affect negotiations;
• be used to apply pressure;
• damage your reputation;
• create room for manipulation;
• get in the way of work with partners;
• affect the trust of your clients.

It is especially important to remember that an expert’s personal brand is built on trust. People want to see a strong, structured and comprehensible public presence. If instead they find chaotic mentions, private contact details, old forms or negative material, the level of trust falls. Protecting personal data online should therefore be seen as part of professional positioning.

Which data needs to be removed

It is not always necessary to remove everything at once. Some information is neutral or even useful for your public profile. But there is data that is better not left in the public domain: private contact details, addresses, documents, personal identifiers, old registration records, duplicate profiles and any mentions that could be used against you.

Even partial information can create a danger.

Removing negative information from the internet also deserves particular attention. This is not only about outright lies. Negative material can be outdated information, an emotional comment, an incorrect publication, a fragment of an old conflict or something taken out of context. When such information appears next to your name, it can influence the decisions of clients, partners or employers.

Where is this data? Personal data can be found:

• in Google, both in search and in the cache;
• on websites and forums;
• in public registers;
• on social media;
• on third-party platforms;
• in the archives of old websites;
• on marketplaces and in directories;
• in company databases;
• in old PDF files or documents;
• in mentions on news resources.

The problem is that data can remain online for years. A site may no longer be updated, yet its pages are still indexed. A company may have closed long ago, but its old contact card is still in a directory. A form may have been filled in many years ago, yet the search engine still shows it under your name. A person may not even suspect that unnecessary information about them exists.

Removing data from Google is a separate area of work. It is important to understand that Google is not always the original source of the information. Most often it merely displays pages that already exist on other sites. The work can therefore involve two levels: taking the information down at the source and requesting an update or removal of the search result. If only one level is dealt with, the problem can come back.

Why removing information yourself is difficult

Many site owners do not respond to emotional requests. A message along the lines of “take this down because I do not like it” usually fails. You have to explain exactly which data has been published, why it breaches privacy, where it is located, who the data subject is and on what grounds the information should be removed. It is also important to draw the right line between personal data and public information, commercial mentions or journalistic material.

A typical situation:

• a person finds the data;
• writes to the site owner;
• is ignored or refused;
• writes again;
• does not know where to turn next;
• sees that the page is still in the search results.

The reason is simple: you need to refer correctly to the law, to the platform rules and to the grounds for removal.

People often look for an answer to the question of how to remove information about themselves, and run into a chaos of advice. Some suggest writing to the site owner. Others say go straight to Google. Others again recommend filing legal complaints. In reality the right route depends on the type of data, the source, the country, the platform, the nature of the publication and on whether the information is private, outdated, inaccurate or unlawfully published.

How to remove personal data from the internet

Removing personal data from the internet rarely comes down to a single letter or a single request. Sometimes you have to find the original source, identify every copy, check the cache, assess the legal grounds, prepare a submission and then track whether the page has disappeared from search. If the data has been copied by other resources, the work is repeated separately for each source. This is why it is important to act systematically rather than at random.

There are several main approaches:

• Removal at the source, through the owners of the sites or platforms.
• Requests to Google for removal from the search results.
• Legal grounds relating to the protection of personal data.
• Deindexing and clearing the cache.
• Updating outdated pages when full removal is impossible.
• Work with duplicated information, when the same data is posted on different sites.
• Monitoring for reappearance, so that the data does not come back through other sources.

In most cases comprehensive work is required.

A separate practical request is how to get a phone number off the internet. A number can sit in directories, old classified ads, profiles, registers, publications, comments or cached pages. In such a case you have to do more than delete the number from one particular page: you also need to check whether it has remained in the search results. Otherwise people will still be able to find it through Google or other search engines.

How we work

The goal is not simply to take the data down, but to protect you in the long term.

At the first stage we look at what a stranger sees when they search for you online. We check the data, the contact details, the brand, the professional activity and the related queries. This lets us see the whole picture rather than one isolated problem. Sometimes the main risk is not where a person expects it to be.

At the second stage we establish how realistic removal is. Some information can be taken down quickly. Some data requires official submissions. Some material is hard to remove completely, but its visibility can be reduced or it can be replaced with stronger positive content. Removing personal data from the internet should therefore go together with competent management of your public image.

Personal data is not only about safety. It is about the impact on your brand:

• the level of your status;
• control over information;
• trust;
• the professional impression you make;
• your negotiating position;
• the stability of your personal brand;
• protection against manipulation.

People trust those who control their own information space. If someone claims the status of an expert, an author, an entrepreneur or a public figure, their digital footprint should be clean and coherent. Ideally the search results show professional pages, interviews, expert material, a book, publications, case studies, talks, a website or good social media accounts. Random databases, old forms, private contact details and negative mentions create a sense of chaos. That can reduce the value of a personal brand even when the person really does have strong expertise.

Online reputation management is not cosmetic work. It is a strategy that helps a person be represented correctly on the internet. It includes clearing away what is unnecessary, strengthening what matters, creating new material and controlling what clients, partners, journalists or potential investors see.

How we reinforce the result through the publishing house

Once the clean-up is done, it is important to shape the right kind of public presence:

• controlled publications;
• author positioning;
• a book as the foundation of expertise;
• a structured digital footprint;
• interviews and expert material;
• author pages;
• professional biographies;
• publications on your own resources.

As a result, only what strengthens your brand remains in the public domain.

For an expert a book can turn out to be not just a creative project but a reputation tool. It helps to consolidate status, explain experience, structure ideas and create a powerful news hook. If someone wants to be associated in search with expertise rather than with old databases or random mentions, a book can become the central element of a new public presence.

This is exactly where the publishing side has practical value. Writing, design, book printing and the subsequent promotion of an author’s image help to replace weak or accidental mentions with strong material. A book, an author page, publications, presentations, interviews and professional descriptions create a manageable digital footprint. Clearing away information and building a personal brand therefore work better together. Privacy deserves particular care from anyone who interacts with large numbers of people. The wider your audience, the higher the risk that someone will start looking for additional information about you. That may include not only clients or partners but also competitors, dissatisfied people, anonymous commenters or fraudsters. Protecting personal data online is therefore needed before a problem becomes public, not after.

This also applies to people who are planning to step into the public eye. If you are preparing to launch a book, a course, a personal website, a media campaign or an expert blog, it is worth checking in advance what is already online about you. Otherwise new visibility may lift up old information that you would rather not show to a wide audience.

How to start working with us

We analyse:

• which data about you is publicly available;
• where it is located;
• which risks it creates;
• what can be removed;
• which pages need to be deindexed;
• which mentions should be replaced with stronger content;
• how to build further protection for your reputation.

Start with an audit rather than with panic. You need to understand exactly what data is online, how dangerous it is, whether it shows up in Google and who controls the original source. After that a plan is drawn up: what to remove, what to hide behind updated search results and what to cover with new professional material. This approach lets you regain control over your online presence rather than merely react to a problem.

Removing personal data from the internet is part of a wider effort covering security, reputation and personal brand. If there is unwanted information about you in the public domain, do not ignore it. The longer it stays online, the greater the chance that it will be copied, indexed or used at an inconvenient moment. It is better to act early and to build a digital footprint that works for you rather than against you.