How to remove your name & personal info from Google search?

In short:

1. Figure out what can and cannot be removed from Google search.
2. Delete information with the “Results about you” tool.
3. If you don’t have access to the “Results about you” tool, Google yourself and use the “removal request” tool
4. Remove your information at the source – delete your social media profiles (or make it private) and remove you info from data brokers.
5. Leverage your right to be forgotten and submit a Personal Data Removal Request
6. Extra step: Set up a Google alert for your name to find out if new results appear after the cleanup

If you want to remove an image of yourself from Google, follow this guide instead.

What information can be removed with the Google removal tool

On April 27, 2022, Alphabet announced a long-awaited feature allowing people to remove personal information from Google’s search results. Alphabet has lowered the bar for having results removed from its Google Search product—good news if you value your privacy.

It’s not all good news, though. Not every piece of your personal information that shows up on Google is eligible for removal, and there are no strict eligibility criteria—each removal request is evaluated by Google.

To be more specific, you can submit a request to remove “select personally identifiable information (PII) or doxxing content” from Google’s search results. Only information that “creates significant risks of identity theft, financial fraud, or other specific harms” is eligible, though.

This could include content that could bring reputational harm, like explicit images and videos or Deepfake pornography. What Google calls “irrelevant pornography” is also included: pornography not featuring you but with which your name is somehow associated.

The personally identifiable information that may be removed on request includes:

• Contact information such as physical address, phone number, and email
• Government-issued ID numbers (like Social Security numbers)
• Bank accounts and credit card numbers
• Handwritten signatures and images of ID documents
• Restricted, official records, like medical documents
• Confidential login credentials.

Read more about what Google considers as PII here.

What cannot be removed from Google search results

Keep in mind that it may not be possible to completely clear your name from Google’s search results. The company has already said that it won’t remove search results for public records, so unless you can get a public record suppressed, it’ll continue to appear in the search results.

Google search results cannot typically be removed for the following types of content:

• Publicly available information
• Legal and government documents
• Information with public interest
• Information posted by others
• Protected speech and artistic expression.

Also, remember that although Google can delist an entry from its search results, it cannot remove this content from the original place where it was published. People won’t find it in Google, but they will be able to see it if they use another search engine or access the website directly.

How to remove info from Google using the new “Results about you” dashboard

Google introduced a limited version of the “Results about you” tool in 2022 to help users find results that contain their personal data. After the August 2023 update, the feature also allows users to submit removal requests and track any new information about them that pops up in searches. That said, the tool is only available (in beta version) if you live in the US. The rest of us will have to wait for the next update. Here’s how it works.

1. Access the “results about you” tool

To access the tool, you can either tap on the account photo in the top right corner and select “results about you” or go to goo.gle/resultsaboutyou.

2. Select “get started.”

3. A new window will open. Click “next”.

4. Fill in your personal details and click on “continue.” 

5. Select how you’d like to be notified about the results (email or push notification).

6. On the following screen, you will see information about what happens next. Click “next“.

7. Click “I’m done.”

8. Wait until Google comes back with results (it takes around 2-4 hours).

You can track the information collected in the “Results about you” dashboard. You can also change the personal information you provided for the search by clicking “settings.”

9. Send a removal request

Once Google comes back with results, you will see them in your “Results about you” dashboard. To submit removal requests, click on the three dots next to the result in question and follow these steps:

1. Select why you want to remove the result and click “continue.”
2. Enter your contact information. Click “continue.”
3. Read the note on how removal works and click “send.”

You can now track the progress of each of these requests in the “Results about you” dashboard.

How to remove personal information from Google search if you do not have access to the “Results about you” feature.

People who don’t yet have access to the “Results about you” tool can still submit a removal request. The process is more tedious and lacks the convenience of a dashboard, but it’s subject to the same strict eligibility criteria. Before you start, find out where exactly your personal information appears by running a thorough search.

1. Run an advanced Google search

Begin by typing your name with quotation marks in the Google search bar. Look through the results and make notes of anything you’d like to have removed. Check your past names and nicknames, too.

Next, review past Google results by checking “cache.” On the same results page, click on “tools” and select the time range. Update your list. You will need URLs and screenshots of websites for the next step.

2. Navigate to the Google removal tool page. Scroll down halfway and click on “start removal request.”

3. Click on the edit icon to the right of “what do you want to do?”.

4. Select “remove information you see in Google Search.”

5. Select where you found the information that you want to be removed.

6. Click on the edit icon to the right of “the information I want removed is:”.

7. Select “in Google’s search results and on a website.”

8. Indicate whether or not you’ve contacted the site’s owner.

9. Under “have you contacted the site’s website owner?”, select “no, I prefer not to.”

10. Choose what content you want to remove.

11. Under “I want to remove”, select “personal info, like ID numbers and private documents.”

12. Choose the personal information you want to remove from Google Search. A list of types of personal information will appear. 

13. Choose the personal information you want to remove from Google Search.

TIP: Include only personal information you’ve actually found in the Google Search results, you’ll be asked for URLs and screenshots in the next step.

14. Fill in the URLs and screenshots of the websites on which your personal data appears and submit the removal request form

15. Place a check next to “yes, the offending content is live on the website” and proceed to fill in the rest of the removal request form.

16. Once you’ve finished pasting in your URLs, typing in your search terms, and uploading representative screenshots, check the declaration at the bottom of the form and click “submit.”

The limitations to removing your personal information from Google

As Michelle Chang, Google’s Global Policy Lead for Search, explains in her blog post, there are limitations on what personal information Google is willing to remove from its search results.

The tech giant won’t remove personal information if it deems doing so would limit “the availability of other information that is broadly useful, for instance in news articles.” Google also won’t remove information that appears as part of the public record on government or other official websites.

The biggest disappointment people are likely to feel with the Google removal process comes from a misunderstanding of what the Google removal tool can and can’t do. It removes your personal information from the search results, but can’t affect the sites that have your information.

Something else to keep in mind is the fact that Google Search is just one of many search engines out there. Google absolutely dominates the market, but its questionable business practices have led to the rise of alternative search engines.

When you remove personal information from Google, you leave most other search engines untouched. The only exceptions here are search engines that draw their results from Google Search, like the more privacy-respecting StartPage.com. Something like DuckDuckGo.com will be unaffected.

The only way to get your personal data off every search engine is to have it deleted at the source—more on this below.

Remove your name and other personally identifiable information at the source  

Search for your name on Google and you’ll find that most of the hits are to social media platforms and people search sites. The easiest way to remove this information from the search results is to delete it at its source. 

Remove social media or set it to private

Removing highly personal content from social media sites is essential to protect your privacy and digital identity. Such content, if left unchecked, can be exploited by data brokers and malicious actors, potentially leading to privacy breaches and identity theft. There are two options:

1. Delete your social media accounts, and the related search results will disappear soon after. Not only will your social media profiles disappear from Google’s search results, but all other search engines as well.
2. If you don’t feel ready to delete your social media profiles, you can try setting them to “private” instead. Changing your profile names from your real name to pseudonyms may also help, as would deleting any personal information like your date of birth and contact details.

Removing social media profiles, should leave mainly people search sites in your Google search results.

Remove data brokers

Deleting personal information from people search sites is crucial to preventing the widespread dissemination of your sensitive data. These platforms compile extensive profiles that include highly personal content, making it easy for anyone to access and misuse such information.

Go to each site that has a report or listing on you and opt out. 

Incogni has detailed, step-by-step guides to help you remove your data from some of the largest people search sites in the industry. These guides will make opting out easy, but be warned: to get your personal information off all of them can take hours. Listings on data broker sites, including people search sites, have a tendency to reappear over time. So you’d need to repeat the opt-out process regularly to keep your data off these sites.

To really put a spanner in the works of data brokers that deal in your personal data, try a subscription to Incogni’s automated data removal tool. It’ll send out dozens of opt-out requests at a time. It’ll also perform regular sweeps of these data brokers to ensure your data stays out of their hands.

Leverage your right to be forgotten 

In May 2014, the European Court of Justice, Europe’s highest judicial authority, ruled that Google is considered a “data controller” according to the European data protection directive and, as such, must answer data removal requests from individuals. It was a landmark decision that significantly impacted data privacy and online information removal. Here is how you can leverage this right. 

The right to be forgotten – what is it?

The “right to be forgotten” is a legal concept that allows individuals to request the removal or delisting of specific search engine results that contain their personal information to protect their online privacy. Also called the right to erasure, it originated in the European Union and is primarily associated with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is applied in EU member states and has also influenced discussions on data privacy and online rights in other countries and regions worldwide. 

Find out more about the right to be forgotten on our blog.

How to submit a Personal Data Removal Request

Navigate to the personal data removal request form and follow these steps:

1. Select the “country whose law applies” from the drop-down menu.
2. Fill in your full legal name and email address.
3. Select whether you are acting on your own behalf or someone else’s.
4. If it’s someone else’s, state your legal relationship with this person.
5. Check the box “yes, there are previously filled requests” if this is not the first request you are submitting.

In this next section, you will identify which information you want to remove and where it’s located.

1. Enter the URL of the content containing the personal information you want removed.
2. Explain the reasons for removal. 

TIP: Follow the suggested prompts: “This page is about me because [state the reason],” and “This page should be removed because [explain why].”

3. If you want information removed from multiple places, click “add new group.”
4. Enter the name which, when used as a search query, produces the results you would like to delist. If there is more than one name, put a forward slash (“/”) between them.

Scroll down to acknowledge the three statements and sign the request.

1. Check all three boxes with legal statements.
2. Add the date and write your full name and surname as a signature.
3. Send in the form by clicking “submit.” 

Who can request to delist content under data protection laws?

A personal data removal request can be made directly by individuals or on behalf of someone else. This can be anyone as long as they can confirm that it is legal for them to do so; for example, a family member, client, friend, or attorney. 

How does Google decide whether to remove your info?

On Google’s right to be forgotten overview page, we read that each request is manually processed by a professional reviewer. The final decision is informed by several factors, “none of which is absolute.”

• Your role in public life.
• Where the information comes from.
• How old and relevant the content is.
• The effect on Google’s users.
• Truth or falsehood.
• How sensitive or private the content is.

Google alerts for monitoring new results

Well done. You have taken all the steps to remove your personal information from Google search results, got some of the content delisted, and perhaps even said goodbye to some of your social media accounts. But what if new results appear after the cleanup?

You can get notified whenever a new result on a topic appears in Google search results. Use it to monitor new results about yourself. Here is how to create a Google alert.

1. Navigate to https://www.google.com/alerts
2. Enter your name and surname in brackets in the search box
3. If you have a Google account, click your name under “me on the web.”
4. Click “show options.”
5. Select how often you’d like to receive alerts and where you’d like to receive them.
6. Click “create alert.”

To really put a spanner in the works of data brokers that deal in your personal data, try a subscription to Incogni’s automated data removal tool. It’ll send out dozens of opt-out requests at a time. It’ll also perform regular sweeps of these data brokers to ensure your data stays out of their hands. What else do you need to disappear completely from the internet? Check out this post.

FAQ