Address, phone or ID posted online: how to get it removed
Your address, phone number, ID documents or private information are online without your consent? You can ask for them to be erased. In the European Union, the GDPR gives you a right to erasure, and Google lets you remove results showing your contact details.
What to do first
- List the pages concerned (their links) and what they show.
- Ask the site to delete your data, through its contact form or the address in its privacy policy. In the EU, it must generally answer within one month.
- Ask Google to remove results showing your contact details (the "Results about you" tool).
- If there is no answer, contact the data protection authority in your country.
By platform
- Facebook Report a photo or video that violates your privacy
- Instagram Report a privacy violation (photo or video of you)
- WhatsApp European Union: privacy issue or legal removal request
- TikTok TikTok privacy form (privacy violation, your data)
- X (Twitter) Report your private information being posted (doxxing)
- YouTube Get your personal information removed from a video or comment
- Snapchat Report an account or content exposing your information (web form)
- Telegram Your personal information posted (doxing)
- LinkedIn Contact LinkedIn’s Data Protection Officer
- Reddit Your personal information posted on Reddit
- Google (Recherche) Remove your contact info from results ("Results about you")
- Bing / Microsoft Europe: ask Bing to block search results (right to be forgotten)
- PimEyes Remove your face from PimEyes results
What to avoid
- Don’t share the page on social media to ask for help: you would give it more visibility.
Your remedies by country
- DSA: reporting illegal content to a platform (EU) In the European Union, any service that hosts content (social network, forum, sharing site…) must let you report illegal content online, examine your notice carefully and tell you its decision. It works for any content that breaks the law: intimate images, fake profiles, defamation, personal data…
- When a domain registrar ignores your abuse report: ICANN A .com, .net, .org or other generic-extension site is registered through a “registrar” (a domain name registration company). Its contract with ICANN requires it to receive abuse reports, investigate them and respond appropriately. If it does not, you can complain to ICANN.
- Fake profile or online impersonation: what to do in France Creating a fake profile in your name, or using your personal data to disturb your peace or harm your reputation, is a criminal offence in France (identity theft). You can have the platform remove the profile and file a police complaint.
- GDPR: asking for your personal data to be erased In the European Union you can ask a website, company or service to erase data about you (photo, name, address, post…) in the cases set out in the GDPR. It must reply within one month, and it is free.
- Right to be forgotten: asking Google or Bing to delist a link In the European Union you can ask a search engine to stop showing, when people search your name, a link to a page about you. This is called “delisting”: the page stays on the original site, but becomes much harder to find.
If it doesn’t work
An official form can go unanswered or be wrongly refused. That’s not the end: there are other doors, heavier but effective — the company hosting the site, the company managing its domain name, the laws of your country, the data protection authority. That’s exactly what we do for you, with your agreement.
- Reporting to the platform
- A written request to the site owner
- The domain name registrar
- The hosting company
- Search engines
- The authority or the courts
Common questions
The site is outside Europe. Does the GDPR apply?
Often yes, if the site targets people in Europe. If not, other doors exist: the hosting company, the company managing the domain name, and removal from search engines.
Does search-engine removal delete the page?
No. It removes the link from search results, but the page stays online. It is a useful extra, not a complete solution.
This information helps you use your rights. It doesn’t replace advice from a lawyer.