One google search of your own name can reveal a lot. Thousands of links pop-up about your personal life and different facts about you and where you live; all available to view publically online. Literally, anyone can google your name and find your personal address, where you work, your family's names and even your criminal record. Some sites even let you pay a small fee (as low as $1) and you can type in any name you want and so much private information comes up.
I wanted to see how big my online footprint is and I am kind of shocked. So I have a facebook and Instagram. My Instagram is set to private, which means viewers can online see my profile photo until I accept their follow request. I used to think that that kept me safer.
When I googled my name (just my name) a lot of different tabs popped up about other people who have the same name as me. None of the posts on the first three pages were about me so I got a little more specific with my searches. I typed in my name and then New Jersey, which is where I am from, and the first site that popped up interested me.
It is called Beenverified.com I clicked on it and hundreds of people with my name came up on my screen. It asked me to enter in a city but I declined that for now. I wanted to see how vague I can be to see my own personal information. 15 spots down I see my name with a list of my family's names next to it. With a few extra clicks and a check in the "I won't use this information against this person" box I was immediately directed to a tab asking for my name, email and last name. I chose to not enter them in, but since I've used a public record checker on myself I know that anyone could see my name, my sisters, parents, grandparents, and some of my uncle's names. They could also see my personal address. The site claims that their
"mission is to give people easy and affordable access to public record information, but BeenVerified does not provide private investigator services or consumer reports, and is not a consumer reporting agency per the Fair Credit Reporting Act. You may not use our site or service or the information provided to make decisions about employment, admission, consumer credit, insurance, tenant screening or any other purpose that would require FCRA compliance. For more information governing permitted and prohibited uses, please review our “Do’s & Don’ts” and Terms & Conditions."
But why can anyone just find out our own personal information? I am personally shocked and I am not okay with this information to be online and this easily accessible. You should google your own name and find out what is out there about you, and you will be surprised by what you could find.
Some videos about the site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9AUeJwZZTU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPk6OahcqVc
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