What you need: Google account Time required: 30 minutes
D
ata published online can hang around a lot longer than you might imagine. Google has introduced a service for identifying and potentially removing personal information from its search results. When we tried it, it turned up details we’d posted on forums around 15 years ago. Try it for yourself by following the steps outlined here, and you may be equally surprised by what you find. If any there’s any personal information you’d like to remove, you can put a request into Google to do so. It’s not guaranteed that Google will do as you ask, but it’s still worth carrying out the search, as you can use the list it produces to contact site owners directly and request that they remove your data from the relevant pages.