No Defense: 61% of NFL players’ personal data left exposed online

Elite athletes often become celebrities in their own right, and the NFL certainly has no shortage of star power. The Super Bowl has consistently been one of the most-viewed sporting events in the United States. It’s not difficult to see why, with displays of athleticism, grit, and teamwork giving fans ample opportunity to vicariously experience both the ecstasy of hard-earned victory and the crushing reality checks of defeat.

Players are often lauded as heroes and derided as villains, depending on where the speaker’s loyalties and allegiances lie. Emotions run high and sometimes spill over to the real world, where online opinions can turn into real-life physical threats. It would be surprising, then, to see professional athletes like NFL players lacking adequate protection of their personal information. Yet, this is exactly what Incogni’s researchers uncovered in their latest study: as many as 61% of all NFL players were found to have their personal information exposed on people search sites (PSS).

The researchers randomly selected 30 members from each team in the league, yielding a total sample of 960 players. They then scanned 250 people search sites (otherwise known as people finder sites, a kind of data broker), looking for probable matches. The main result: 585 matches that met the confidence threshold. That’s 585 out of 960 players and their families potentially in danger of having their personal information, such as phone numbers, home addresses, and family contacts, exposed to the public.

Key insights

• 61% of investigated NFL players were likely exposed on people-search sites (PSS), with almost 28% of all those investigated being exposed on three or more PSS.
• The Los Angeles Chargers had the greatest proportion of exposed players, with 80% likely to be discoverable on PSS. They were followed by the Tennessee Titans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Indianapolis Colts, all of which had 73% of their investigated players likely exposed.
• The team with the fewest players likely on PSS were the Kansas City Chiefs, with 43% of players likely exposed. The Las Vegas Raiders, Carolina Panthers, and Baltimore Ravens had the next-lowest exposure rates, with 47% of their players likely having their information on PSS.
• Nose tackles and quarterbacks were the most likely to have their information exposed, at rates of 80% and 75%, respectively. 
• The 21–23 year-old cohort was likely exposed at a rate of 54%. The cohort of those aged 27-29 was likely exposed at a rate of 75%. However, those aged 30 or older were only exposed at a rate of 53%.
• The site that likely held the personal details of the most NFL players promised data that included phone numbers, addresses, and criminal records.

Overview: the NFL and PSS

Of the 960 athletes investigated, 585 were found to have probable profile matches on at least one people-search site each.

With 61% of players having been found on at least one people-search site, Incogni’s researchers probed the extent of exposure for these individuals. To do this, they investigated how many people-finder sites exposed these athletes’ personal information. 

Despite the high rate of exposure, a promising detail was the steep drop off when checking how many sites the athletes were exposed on. With 50% fewer individuals likely having their information available on at least three PSS than on at least one such site. This means that while the information is out there, it is harder to find and access. 

The researchers noted that football players are better off than other sampled groups, with only 9% being exposed on 10 or more PSS, compared to 41% of DOW 30 company board members, and 26% of healthcare professionals.

Personal-data exposure by team

Incogni’s researchers also looked at the data at a team level. Given the consistent sample sizes, each team member detected resulted in a 3% increase in the proportion of the team that was likely on PSS.

Los Angeles Chargers players were found to be the most likely to have their information available on people search sites, with 80% of investigated players exposed. After the Chargers, with a slightly smaller average likely exposure rate of 73%, were the Tennessee Titans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Indianapolis Colts. 

The most commonly seen proportion of exposed players per team (the mode) was 60%, with 6 out of 32 teams reaching this exposure rate: the Cincinnati Bengals, Green Bay Packers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Los Angeles Rams, New England Patriots, and San Francisco 49ers.

Generally, the vast majority of teams had more than 50% of their players exposed on PSS, with the exception of the Las Vegas Raiders, Carolina Panthers, Baltimore Ravens, and Kansas City Chiefs.

Positions and the likelihood of exposure

While the position the players play in are highly unlikely to play any role in the likelihood of personal details being available on people search sites, Incogni researchers were curious to check for any patterns.

While not definitive, players in offensive roles were generally more likely to have their information exposed online, with the tackles and quarterbacks standing out at 80% and 75% respectively. The centers weren’t far behind, with 74% likely having their information available on PSS. 

For defensive roles, outside linebackers stand out with a likely exposure rate of 71%, followed by cornerbacks (65%), and free safeties (60%).

While not something the researchers investigated further, it is possible that the media and fan-base prominence of some positions over others played a role here.

Personal-data exposure by age group

Given the nature of American football and the NFL in particular, most athletes fell into the age bracket of 21–29 years, with only 156 out of the 960 players being 30 years old or older.

As Incogni’s researchers had noted while investigating other populations, older subjects are often more likely to be exposed on people search sites. For NFL players, as the age bracket increases, so does the rate of likely data exposure, with the notable exception of a sharp drop-off for players aged 30 years or older.

Players aged between 21 and 23 years (inclusive) were likely exposed at a rate of 54%, increasing to 58% for those aged 24–26 years and jumping to 75% for 27–29 year-olds. In the investigated sample, individuals aged 29 years had a disproportionately high exposure rate, distorting this group’s average. 

In previous Incogni studies investigating the exposure rates of various groups—such as judges and healthcare professionals—a positive correlation between age and exposure was observed. However, the data here is much more granular: where, previously, the investigated populations were grouped by generation or ten-year age brackets, in this study, there are only four buckets, grouped by three-year age brackets. This suggests that increasing the granularity of age ranges does not reveal generalizable insights.

Personal-data exposure by location

There were sufficient numbers of sampled players to derive an average exposure percentage in 35 states.

Players hailing from Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Indiana were the least likely to have their information exposed on people search sites, with rates of 20%, 29% and 31%, respectively. Wisconsin stands out among the states, with players from Wisconsin being almost 10% less likely to be exposed than the next least-exposed state. 

In the sample, players from Arizona, Colorado, and Missouri were the most likely to have personal information available on PSS, at rates of 87.5%, 80% and 80%, respectively. 

While determining the root causes of this variability is outside the scope of this research, plausible explanations include varying degrees of digitisation of public records and different privacy laws across the states. 

What kinds of data were exposed

To illustrate what exposure means for the investigated football players, Incogni’s researchers looked at what types of personal information the people search sites that published the most NFL profiles could be exposing.

The researchers found that the people search sites that were likely to hold the greatest numbers of players’ data all claimed to collect:

• Basic contact information, like emails and phone numbers
• Lists of relatives and spouses
• Current addresses
• Legal judgements and criminal records
• Properties and assets.

Some of them also claimed to have access to players’:

• Education and occupation histories
• Social media profiles
• Photos.

It’s important to emphasize that many of the data points above are available to anyone, without registration or payment. More information, often very sensitive, may be available behind a paywall. Trial memberships are often available for as little $1.

Methodology

In order to study the potential impact that people search sites have on the privacy and safety of professional NFL (National Football League) players, Incogni investigated a substantial sample from each team and checked the availability of their personal information online. 

The list of NFL players was created on January 9th, 2026, and comprised 30 players from each team’s roster (including reserve players but not practice-squad members). Incogni’s researchers then sought out minimal, publicly available information so that they could check these NFL players against PSS (people search site) records. Using the Incogni exposure scanner, they checked whether the players were available on any of over 250 people search sites.

For every individual data point, they used to query the PSS—name, surname, age, city, and state—a match ranking in the range 1–100 was assigned. In cases where personal details were found to be a partial match, such as spelling variations or a slight difference in age, the match ranking for that data point fell below 100. The algorithm then determined a match ranking for every data point based on the magnitude of the difference between a query and its potential match. The match rankings for every data point were then averaged and presented as an overall match ranking, expressed as a percentage. For this study, 75% was chosen as the match probability at which an NFL player was deemed to be likely discoverable on people search sites.

Notes on data:
30 members were randomly selected from each team, regardless of the position they played. This created several positions for which the researchers were not able to get a meaningful result (these positions had fewer than 10 players in the sample). 

Public data:
Due to the nature of this study, Incogni’s research team has decided not to share their research materials.

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