HOW TO REMOVE DATA FROM RADARIS
2023-03-12
Context
At some point in my life, probably when I was 7-12 years old, I uploaded an image of my face to Google as a profile picture. I kept it there for a while, and then changed it to something else.
During that time, that image of my face was the top result on Google Images when you searched for my name, a fact I was quite proud of at the time. I guess I thought it made me famous?
Anyway, while that image of my face was proudly displayed on my profile, a company named Radaris took my name and profile picture and displayed it on their site for all to see. So when you googled my name, the image of my juvenile face still remained on Google, despite it not being publicly available anywhere but Radaris's site.
What is Radaris?
Radaris, from what I can tell, is one of the most hated companies in the world. It is essentially a data broker. The US-based company collects data about people and presents it in an easy-to-use people-search engine.
According to this source, Radaris hoards information on around 594 million people.
From what I've seen, the information they gather can include:
- Names,
- Aliases,
- Dates of birth,
- Home addresses,
- Phone numbers,
- Employment information,
- Email addresses,
- Social media accounts,
- Education-related info, like what school and when you graduated,
- Even marriage and divorce records.
They claim that this search engine is helpful for people who are searching for a long-lost family member, doing background checks on employment candidates, or other such non-malevolent acts. In reality, this information can be easily abused by threat actors like scammers, identity thieves, or stalkers.
This opinion isn't rare, by the way; in 2018, a class action lawsuit was filed against the company, which resulted in Radaris being shut down... for about two months.
Unless you are a complete ghost, it is highly likely that they have collected information about you, even if you don't live in the United States. Go ahead, google your name and find out!
Radaris has my information, how do I remove it?
This can range from easy to frustratingly hard depending on how much information Radaris has recorded on you.
Here is what worked for me:
Step 1. Find all the pages with your information on them. For me, this was one page with my name and a profile picture.
Step 2. Email Radaris customer service. (customer-service@radaris.com)
Here is what I sent:
Please remove the following information from your website:
This photo of me, which can be seen in the "Google Plus" section of the following page:
https://radaris.com/p/myfirstname/mylastname/
(I included the photo here)
(And a screenshot of the page where my information was visible here)
Please delete this information as soon as possible.
They replied with:
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us.
To remove information from Radaris, please follow this link: https://radaris.com/control/
Important:
Once you submit the verification code, click "View My Account" in the thank you message, then click "Make Profile Private."
Lastly, click "Delete Specific Records" to review that all relevant information has been removed.
We recommend using our free Radar People Monitoring service available at radaris.com/radar/ to be sent an email whenever a new public record update appears anywhere on the web.
Best regards,
Radaris Customer Service
To which I replied:
I tried that, it doesn't work.
I don't have a profile; there is only that photo.
Please remove it.
After that, they actually did remove the information.
Step 3. After 48 hours, go to Google's Outdated Content Removal Tool and submit the Radaris URLs that contain your data.
Again, this is what worked for me, but it may not work for you. It depends on how much information they have about you. Some victims have said that Radaris asks them to register with the site to get their information removed, i.e., give them more information to get your information removed.
My takeaways from this experience
This has made me a lot more careful about what information I put online. I began to delete old and unused accounts with various websites, which was a whole ordeal in itself.
I also changed a lot of my usernames. I changed any username that had my real name in it. On top of that, I tried to separate my online personas. My persona as presented on social media should not clearly show who I am on gaming services like Steam, or clearly lead to the persona on this website, Tosatur. As someone who has been using the internet for most of their life, that required changing a lot of profile pictures, changing a lot of names, and removing a lot of links.
I still debate with myself about how much is acceptable to put online. For example, I considered removing any references to Melbourne, Australia from this site. It's taken me a while to add any contact information to this site because I'm trying to figure out a good mail hosting service to use for my new email, which should be separate from my personal email, which should be separate from my gaming email, etc., etc.
Moral of the story is, don't use the internet, and fuck Radaris.