In an era dominated by tales of embarrassing and Watch Sukeban Deka: The Movie Onlinepolitically devastating email hacks, the need to protect yourself online is all the more real.
From phone numbers and addresses to the names of your parents and relatives, your personal information is sitting on a number of websites, for anyone to peruse and misuse.
But there's a way to stop it.
SEE ALSO: Study: Hackers can get your credit card info in 6 seconds just by guessing itGenealogy websites like FamilyTreeNow and people-search sites like Spokeo all publish this sort of info by pulling it from public records. Some of them make this material even easier to access than others. For instance, FamilyTreeNow is free and you don't even need to sign up.
This means basically anyone with internet access can very easily get hold of your personal info -- all they need to do is fill in the name and city. Even information like the names of co-workers and addresses dating back over 50 years can be found.
But it's not all bad. In many cases, you can go to the sites directly and remove your information.
On Tuesday, writer Anna Britain tweeted a warning message that's since gone viral, offering a quick and easy way to get your most sensitive information off of one site in particular: FamilyTreeNow.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
If you visit the FamilyTreeNow website, you can see everything that's available about you by just filling in your name and state on the first page. Go have a look. It's frightening.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable If you don't want this personal info just floating around for anyone else to see, you can "opt out" by visiting the privacy settings, as Brittain explains in the online safety thread.
On any page of the website, you can scroll down to the very bottom and you'll see the word "Privacy." Click on that.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable It will take you to a page about privacy that has a lot of text. You need to scroll down about halfway to a section that looks like the image below. Where it says "Opt Out of Living People Records," you want to click on the link that says "opt out here."
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable The next page will give instructions on how to opt out of releasing all your records to the site.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable From there, you just follow the 4-step process and the records will be removed. By the end of it, you should end up at a screen that looks like the image below.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable And 'opting out' is an option you have at other websites, too.
Spokeo also has an opt-out form, and it's found on the Privacy page just like FamilyTreeNow.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Another popular people-search site, aptly called PeekYou, also allows you to fairly easily remove your information by filling out an opt-out form, which is linked towards the top of the site's privacy page.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable On WhitePages, the process is a bit more difficult but still doable. If you scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Help, you can find instructions on the next page that show how to remove your listing. It does require creating a login, but could be well worth it. The full opt-out instructions can be found here.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Instant Checkmate meanwhile is a people-search site that mostly flaunts its vast data tank of arrest records and criminal filings. It also offers an opt-out form that can be found here and its privacy policy advises you email [email protected] to have your info removed.
You never know where that very sensitive info may be hiding, so you might just want to take a look. And opt out.
Topics Cybersecurity
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