In today’s connected world, a simple online search can reveal everything from your home address to phone number, age, and even family connections. When this extends to employee data and executive contact details, it exposes businesses to an elevated level of risk. Data broker services—companies specializing in running background checks and more—are constantly collecting, buying, and selling this information. And when it includes critical information, like Social Security numbers, it creates an uncomfortable mix of privacy and security threats.
How can you stay safe? Data removal services scan the internet to find where the information appears, send opt-out or deletion requests on your behalf, and monitor the internet for reoccurrences. These services can relieve the burden of chasing hundreds of websites down manually. For businesses, removing data from the internet isn’t just a matter of privacy; it’s a security and compliance issue. Exposed employee information can pose direct security threats through impersonation, reputational fallout, and compliance violations. Since these data removal service companies handle your most sensitive data, choosing the best one for your business requires careful attention. We’re here to help you make the right choice.
Why Data Removal Matters for Business
Safety and privacy are the biggest reasons to consider a data removal service. For businesses, exposing employee emails or phone numbers can lead to phishing attacks, impersonation scams, and corporate espionage.
Generally, most people simply do not want their personal details to be searchable. But for businesses, the issue goes far beyond preference. Publicly available employee data leaves room for harassment, threats, and reputational damage. Outdated or inaccurate information can also undermine trust with potential clients, partners, or investors. Employee and executive data can be exploited in phishing campaigns, corporate espionage, or even doxxing attempts.
Ensuring that employee data is secure is a key part of reputation management. In certain industries and jurisdictions, exposure of employee data can trigger a compliance violation under GDPR or CCPA laws. Choosing the right data removal service isn’t just about privacy precautions; it is an essential part of an organization’s security and compliance strategy.
The Best Data Removal Services We’ve Tested
Data removal services effectively act as a middleman between you and countless sites that trade in personal information and data. These services scan the internet to detect traces of private information and locate where the details might have been exposed. Given the sheer scale of data broker operations, this could include everything from large data brokers to people search websites, as well as websites offering background check databases.
Some data removal services perform a one-time operation, while others continuously scan the internet for your private information. Regardless of the frequency, once data leaks have been identified, the service submits a formal opt-out or deletion request on your behalf. An opt-out request is legally binding in many, but not all, jurisdictions. In some cases, a data removal service may need to send repeat notifications to ensure that your data is removed from the database.
Some data removal services even offer extra features, including dark web monitoring, credit monitoring, VPNs, and active data breach notifications. Alongside ensuring that your data has been securely removed from the internet, data removal services offer visibility. Dashboards and reports log the data, including the brokers contacted, confirmed removals, and pending removals. This proof separates a data removal service from manually contacting hundreds of individual data brokers.
For business customers, leading data removal service providers expand these capabilities to cover enterprise needs. This can include multiuser protection for entire teams, executive-level monitoring, centralized dashboards for IT and compliance teams, and granular reporting. In regulated industries, these reports can even serve as compliance documentation during audits.
It is important to remember that not all data can be legally removed from the internet. For example, court filings and public legal documents (such as property records) are required to remain on the internet. Similarly, a data removal service typically cannot remove news media content or social media posts. A data removal service can dramatically decrease your online exposure, but it cannot offer invisibility.
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5 Things to Look for in a Data Removal Service
(Source: Optery/PCMag)
While most data removal services operate similarly, a few important differences must be considered before investing in one. The best data removal services combine a wide coverage of data brokers, ranging from hundreds of websites. These services typically include recurring monitoring, strong transparency and reports, careful privacy practices, and good customer support. Here’s what to be aware of when choosing a data removal service for your business:
1. Coverage and Reach
Data removal services are only as good as the number of brokers they can cover. Most popular data removal services contact hundreds of data brokers. However, for business use cases, you’ll want to specifically look for services that can handle domestic and international brokers, as global operations can mean exposure across jurisdictions.
2. Recurring Monitoring
Data removal is not a one-and-done problem. Brokers refresh databases frequently, and new data broker databases appear constantly, making reexposure extremely likely. A business-grade data broker should offer continuous monitoring, scans, and automatically resubmit removal requests to offenders. This ensures that even if sensitive information reappears on the internet, it is quickly removed.
3. Transparency and Proof
While it is easy to claim that a data removal service has done its job, it can be hard to determine if the request was truly successful. Trustworthy services provide comprehensive reports that identify the contacted brokers, provide the status of each request, and identify if the data removal compliance was confirmed. These services offer screenshots and written confirmations of request compliance. The reports are essential for audits, offering evidence of due diligence to employees, regulators, stakeholders, and even insurers.
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4. Privacy and Security Practices
A data removal service works by matching your data against what’s on the internet. Ironically, this means handing over the very information you want hidden. This makes strong security and privacy practices critical. You’ll want to ensure that the removal service meets enterprise standards, such as ISO 27001, which provides a framework for managing and protecting sensitive information.
5. Customer Support
Just because a data removal request has been submitted doesn’t mean that a data broker will comply with it. In such cases, effective human customer support matters. A good data removal service offers round-the-clock customer support that can escalate issues, explain your rights, and offer custom removal requests when automation falls short. Some key differentiators are a dedicated account manager, enterprise-grade support SLAs, and a direct line for escalation to ensure critical requests are handled on time.
Which Data Removal Service Is Right for Your Business?
The data removal industry is split between consumer-first brands and those offering enterprise-grade capabilities combined with reputation management. Services like Incogni, Optery. and Privacy Bee are popular among individuals and small teams for their affordable pricing and comprehensive databases. However, the feature set may not match the needs of a business managing dozens or even hundreds of employee records. Providers like IDX Complete emphasize enterprise dashboards and compliance-friendly reporting. (Note that the services we link to in this story are the consumer-facing versions we tested, but each also has business-specific offerings.)
Even the strongest data removal service cannot completely remove every trace of your company data or its employees from the internet. Public filings, media reports, and user-generated content can be outside their scope. Data brokers may also re-add information after a period of time, which is why ongoing monitoring is essential. In some cases, businesses may need to combine a data removal service with digital risk protection to get comprehensive data exposure defense.
Ongoing data removal is no longer optional; it is a business priority. Leaked employee data opens businesses to phishing attacks, security risks, and breaches compliance requirements. Choosing the right provider means focusing on enterprise-grade features, including broad coverage, recurring monitoring, transparent reporting, and strong privacy practices. Selecting a provider that can effectively scale to hundreds of users is equally as important as dedicated support and pricing that aligns with your business needs.
No solution can completely erase data from the internet, but the right data removal service can substantially reduce exposure. Think of it not just as a security tool, but as part of standard compliance and risk management. The right data removal services support business resilience, reduce liability, and protect your employees at scale. In a world where data is currency, controlling what can be removed is an essential investment every business needs to consider.
About Our Expert
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I’m a seasoned journalist who has been writing about consumer tech for the last fifteen years, and dabbling in it for longer still. Outside of writing, you’ll find me nerding out over coffee, watching a horror movie, reading a sci-fi novel, or playing the latest heavy metal records.
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