Privacy at Risk: Are people search platforms making information about people public without their consent?
Are individuals aware that with a single click, anyone can know where they live, who their relatives are, and more importantly their cell phone details?
Recently, During my coffee break, I decided to connect with a long-lost friend on LinkedIn. I have a habit of putting up names in Google searches and usually, the LinkedIn links turn up among the top 10 results. To my surprise, this time was quite different. I came across a website called “Whitepages.com”; A search engine typically designed to search for people. Whitepages has the following services to offer.
So my curiosity drove me to a point where I wanted to test this system for its efficacy. I decided to look for Taylor Swift. Multiple times a Grammy winner and one of my favorite music artists.
To my surprise, this is what came as a result (depicted in the image below).
Now for the sake of Taylor Swift’s privacy, I have blurred the address sections:
As per the image above, We found that the relatives of Taylor Swift are as follows:
1. A Dean Swift
2. Andrea Finlay Swift
3. Austin Kingsley Swift
4. Scott Kingsley Swift
According to Fandom.com, Taylor Swift’s family consists of the following members (https://taylorswift.fandom.com/wiki/Family_of_Taylor_Swift).
Well, it seems that the details being showcased on fandom meet the results from whitepages.com.
Now to confirm the address I tried searching it on Google and located one of Taylor’s businesses registered under the same address (I won't be revealing this data for the sake of privacy).
On further investigation, I got to know that if a subscription fee is paid, Whitepages.com allows its users to see all the associated cellphone numbers of the person.
Now from here, I went on to search for a couple of friends and I was able to find most of them on this platform which came as a fright to me. I even reached out to some friends to actually uncover whether they had knowingly shared the information with the platform to which I got to learn that they had not heard of this platform and were under quite a shock realizing the fact that their information was public.
I wanted to understand whether this was ethical, so my exploration led me to this entertaining and informative Youtube video by Jack Gordon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FDGdzY9vfw
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In this video, Jack has actually called and notified 100+ celebrities including Elon Musk, Jason Nash, Britney Spears, and more about the leak. He also went to remove these celebrities from the portal—such a wonderful thing to do.
I would be highlighting the steps to unlist a profile from Whitepages.com (Courtesy of Jack’s video), and I’m also hoping at the same time that this article finds its way to reach more people and helps them to unlist themselves and their families/friends/acquaintances from whitepages.com for the sake of privacy :)
How to unlist a profile from whitepages.com
1. Go to the following URL:
https://www.whitepages.com/suppression-requests
2. Copy the URL appearing on the address bar after clicking on view full report (Link inside the blue border in the image below).
3. Go back to #1 and paste the URL in the Opt-out of Whitepages form (Like in the image below).
4. Click on next and then remove me.
5. It will now ask you to state the reason, go ahead and put in whatever you feel is suitable then click on Next.
6. Now it will ask for your U.S. phone number. Enter the number and click on “Call now to verify”.
7. You would now see a 4-digit verification code on your screen. An automated call would be initiated by Whitepages.com asking you to input the verification code. Once you do, the information would be taken down by Whitepages.com within 24 hours.
8. Congratulations you are done, Please go enjoy your victory in safeguarding your information and give yourself a pat on the back.
Now, the question arises whether these platforms have the right to share public information, and whether it is ethical or not to do so. Though I do not actually have an answer at the moment, I would really appreciate it if someone reaches out to me on the same.
In my opinion, I feel that these kinds of details should not be made publicly available. Yes, it is quite true that such information helps a person in multiple ways including background checks. Still, I feel that some governing body should be introduced in such cases which should hold the authority and decide to whom this data should be made available.
To conclude, I would say that online platforms like Whitepages should be regulated as they can have a direct impact on the privacy of people.
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