Remove Public Records from Internet for Free (2026)

What counts as a "public record"?

Public records are documents created or held by government agencies that are legally accessible to anyone. In the US context, these include: property deeds and tax assessments, voter registration filings, court records (civil and criminal), marriage and divorce filings, business registrations, bankruptcy filings, and in most states, professional license records. These records are public by law, they cannot be "deleted" from the government source. What you can do is prevent data brokers from republishing them on searchable commercial databases.

Step-by-step: How to remove public records from the internet

1. Step 1: Identify which records are published. Search your name + city on Google. Note which sites are republishing your records, likely Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified, Radaris, Intelius, Instant Checkmate, or court-record aggregators like PublicRecordsNow or CourtRecords.us. Copy the URLs.
2. Step 2: Submit opt-out requests to data broker sites. Each of the major people-search sites republishing your records has a self-serve opt-out form. Work through the top 20, this removes the indexed, searchable copy even though the underlying government record remains. Use OfflistMe to generate all requests simultaneously.
3. Step 3: Request de-indexing from Google. Once you have removed a listing from a broker site, use Google's "Results About You" tool at myaccount.google.com to request removal of the Google search result. Google processes most de-indexing requests within 1–2 weeks.

   💡 Tip: Focus on Google de-indexing the pages that actually rank for your name, not every broker page matters equally. A page on page 5 of Google for your name has negligible real-world impact.

4. Step 4: Address court records specifically. Criminal and civil court records are the most damaging type of public record. Many states now allow expungement of arrest records that did not result in conviction. Petition your state court for expungement, once granted, you can demand removal from court-record aggregators, and the county database that brokers scrape will no longer contain the record.
5. Step 5: Contact the county recorder for property records. Some counties allow address suppression in property records for domestic violence survivors, law enforcement officers, and judicial officers. Check your county recorder's website for a "confidential address" or "address suppression" program.

What can and cannot be permanently deleted