Up to now, I’ve been writing articles for Police1 that cover the ways that technology can benefit us law enforcement officers. I’ve focused on our ability to have technology at our fingertips to help us in gaining intelligence, tracking bad guys, and finding them.
But there is a down side to technology. As much as we use it to conduct our duties, bad guys can use it to their benefit as well.
A recent Police1 article written by Charles Remsberg, One deputy’s nightmare: Dealing with violent stalkers, mentions the fact that a generic search by “anyone” can result in someone finding your place of residence and maybe much more than you thought was available. Most of the sites that offer information request payment from the person requesting said information. The amount of information given depends on how much the requesting party is willing to pay.
I made a simple Internet search using Google and found many sites offering information — most of these sites are only links to the Web site of a company called Intellius. Before I get into trouble with my editor, I should mention right off the bat that this company is not a bad guy. Nor are other such firms (like ZabaSearch, Pipl.com, and others) in this line of work.
Like any other tool in the right hands, the offering from Intellius can be an incredibly beneficial one. One of their stated purposes for being is to give people the “power to avoid relationships with people or businesses likely to put your personal life, assets or organization at risk.” That is a commendable mission.
For the purpose of this discussion however, we’re setting aside the obvious “upside” to their offering and talking strictly about what can happen when good tools fall into the hands of bad guys.
Okay, now that I’ve done my disclaimer, I’ll get back to my Internet search and its results. I found several companies that actually offer information directly from their Web sites. These include the abovementioned Zabasearch, Pipl.com, and Intellius, all of which appear to offer information once a name is found. Unfortunately, there is another place we need to point out: the State. Your state voter registry may offer vital and accurate information on your current address. I have not found a way to omit personal information from the voter registry.
We all know that most bad guys are only looking for free information but as stated in the article by Mr. Remsberg a motivated bad guy may go to any expense to locate you or your loved ones.
There are way too many informational Web sites to list that offer pertinent personal information, as I mentioned before most of them just link to Intellius. Two of the web sites I found, ZabaSearch and Intellius offer to remove your name if requested. Pipl offers links to other web sites but those particular web sites sometimes offer more than the usual information.
Go to ZabaSearch, Pipl, and Intellius and request to have your information removed. Those web sites have certain steps to remove your information. Mr. Remsberg’s article shares that those web sites will honor LEO’s request for information removal after certain steps are followed.
During your search you may find other sites with your information you can request they remove your information. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee they will remove it but it is worth a try.
Remember we live in the information age and even omitting your name from the one or more sites you find doesn’t mean the data doesn’t exists elsewhere on another Web site you have not yet discovered.
My best advice is to periodically do a search for your name. Use more than one search engine. I’ll grant you, Google is great and I use it all the time, but you’ll find different results on Yahoo!, Bing (formerly Microsoft Live), Eurekster, AOL, and Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves).
I’m sure you will find newspaper articles about your police work. You may find some old, archived information. But you may also find more information than you previously thought would be readily available.
Rest assured, I am not writing this article to make you paranoid. My desire is to inform you and help you be aware that all of us have some information in cyberspace that is viewable globally. I just want to share with my fellow Police1 Members that the information age is alive and well and that we are not immune to its “downside.”
Do yourself a favor and do a Google or other Web search of your name. You may be very surprised at you may find.
Be safe!
