How to Remove Your Personal Information from Google for Free
5 items you can ask Google to delete and the steps to take to protect your online privacy and secure your personal data
As our daily lives become intertwined with quickly advancing technology, it’s more difficult than ever to maintain privacy online. In fact, studies from the Pew Research Center show that the majority of Americans believe their personal data is less secure now, that data collection poses more risks than benefits, and that being tracked online is just a way of life. But while the Internet holds a massive amount of data that many of us consider to be private, there are some steps we can take to protect our personal information and privacy. One way to do just that is to remove our personal information from Google Search results. Here’s how.
What information will Google remove?
You can work with Google to get some of your information deleted by requesting that the company removes links to the information from Google Search. Google will not remove everything you ask it to, but it will remove information that creates “significant risks of identity theft, financial fraud, or other specific harms.”
The types of information Google will remove include:
1. Personally Identifiable Information, such as your Social Security Number, bank account and credit card numbers, pictures of your signature or identifying documents, medical records, login credentials, and personal contact information
2. Explicit or personal images or videos
3. Content about you on sites with exploitative removal practices, meaning the sites require you to pay money to them or an agency to get content removed
4. Images of minors
5. Content for legal reasons, such as copyright violations
How to make a removal request
Google Support offers a variety of articles that provide specific details on the types of removals available. Each of these articles has more information on the requirements for Google to consider removing the content as well as the factors Google considers when evaluating removal requests.
If the content does meet the requirements for removal, you can start the request process with Google. Here are some of the steps you'll need to follow.
1. Choose what you want Google to do with your information.
2. Provide where you saw the information you want removed.
3. Select a category for your information.
4. Provide your contact information and URLs of the website(s) where your information appears.
5. In some cases, you may need to provide additional information to help prove your identity or other information.
After you submit the request, you’ll get an email confirmation. Google will review your request, gather more information if necessary, and then make a decision on whether or not it will remove the content. You’ll get a notification of any action taken. If your request is denied, you'll receive an explanation of why your request doesn’t meet requirements.
If information is removed from Google Search, is it gone forever?
The short answer is no. Even if you get something removed from Google Search, it doesn’t mean it no longer exists on the Internet. Google Search shows information that’s gathered from websites around the web, and even if it’s removed from Google Search, the content may still exist elsewhere, including on the website that hosts it, through social media, and on other search engines. Google will not take down any website that hosts the content in question; it only will remove it from search results.
There’s a saying that you can never completely delete anything from the Internet, but you can contact the owner of a page or website and ask them to remove the content. If this happens before Google has removed the information from Google Search, it will eventually be removed as part of Google's regular updates.