What the free scan checks
Three separate kinds of exposure, because they leak through different routes and need different fixes.
Known data breaches
Your email address is checked against the Have I Been Pwned database of known breaches. Results show which breaches you appeared in and what kind of data leaked - passwords, phone numbers, addresses - so you know what to change.
Public profiles tied to a username
If you reuse a handle, the scan looks for it across a curated list of public platforms. This is how a pseudonymous account gets linked to a real identity, and it is the exposure people most often overlook.
Data-broker listings
The scan maps the major US people-search sites that typically hold a record for an adult, and links each one straight to its free opt-out guide so you have an ordered task list rather than a vague worry.
What it will not tell you
Every scanner in this category is sold on the implication that it sees everything. None do, including this one, and the limits are worth stating before you run it rather than after.
It cannot enumerate every data broker that holds your data. Nobody can - brokers do not expose their databases for querying, and any tool claiming an exact count is estimating.
It does not check the dark web in the sense the marketing of paid products implies. It checks known, catalogued breach records, which is the part that can be checked honestly.
It does not remove anything by itself. Removal means filing the opt-outs, which we document for free, or paying a service to file them for you.
It cannot tell you who has already looked you up. No tool can.
How to check if your personal information is online
If you would rather do it by hand, the process is not a secret. Work through these in order - the scan above simply runs the first three at once.
- Search your own name. Put your full name in quotes with your city, then again with your state, in more than one search engine. The people-search sites on the first two pages are your priority, because they are what anyone looking for you will find.
- Check your email against breach records. A known-breach lookup tells you which passwords are burnt and what else leaked alongside them.
- Search any username you reuse. A handle used across several platforms is the usual thread that links a pseudonymous account to your name.
- Check your state's data broker registry. California, Vermont, Texas, and Oregon publish lists of registered brokers.
- Opt out of what you found. Every major people-search site has a free opt-out. We document 62 of them.
What we do with what you scan
Nothing, and this is the part we would want to check if we were you. A privacy site that quietly builds a database of everyone worried about their privacy would be a strange kind of privacy site.
- The scan runs in memory. What you type is not written to a database.
- Analytics are cookieless and aggregate. We cannot tie a page view to you.
- The one exception is opt-in and obvious: if you tick the box for a monthly re-check, we store that identifier so we can compare against it next month. One click unsubscribes.
The privacy policy says the same thing in more formal language, and the affiliate disclosure explains how the site pays for itself.
What to do with your results
A scan is only useful if it produces a task list. Ours is ordered by how much protection each step buys for the time it takes.
- Change any breached password and everywhere you reused it, then turn on two-factor authentication. This is the most urgent item and the quickest.
- Freeze your credit at all three bureaus. It is free, and it prevents new-account fraud rather than merely reporting it - we cover the reasoning in dark web vs credit monitoring.
- Opt out of the brokers listing you, starting with any that rank for your own name. The free opt-out guides are grouped easiest-first.
- File a DROP request if you live in California. One free, legally binding request covers every registered broker - how DROP works. Outside California, your state's options.
- Re-check in a few months. Listings rebuild from public records, so removal is maintenance rather than a one-off.
Free scan versus paid removal services
Worth being direct, since we earn a commission when someone buys a removal service through us. A paid service does not unlock anything you cannot do yourself: it files the same free opt-out requests, on the same forms. What you are buying is breadth and repetition - hundreds of sites rather than the twenty you have patience for, and automatic re-filing when listings return.
If you will genuinely do the maintenance yourself, the guides are free and always will be. If you know you will not, a service is a reasonable purchase. Our comparison of DROP versus paid removal lays out where each one actually helps.
Why your information is out there at all
Almost none of it was stolen. Property deeds, voter files, court filings, and licence records are public or available in bulk, and the data-broker industry buys, enriches, and resells them. Assembling those scattered documents into one indexed profile is legal in the United States, and you were never asked.
That is why the fix is opting out rather than reporting a crime. If you want the longer version, what people-search sites are covers where the data comes from, and how many data brokers have your information covers the scale.