Intelius is one of the largest people-search platforms on the internet. It aggregates public records, social media data, and other sources to build detailed profiles that include your name, address, phone number, email, relatives, and more. If you have found your personal information on Intelius and want it removed, the opt-out process exists and it works. Here is how to do it.
Why Intelius matters
Intelius operates several subsidiary people-search brands, including US Search, iSearch, and Zabasearch. When you opt out of Intelius, your removal should cascade to these related properties as well. This makes Intelius a high-priority opt-out. A single request can help clean up your data across multiple sites.
Intelius profiles rank well on Google, especially for less common names. Even for common names, having an Intelius profile means anyone who searches for you and clicks through will find your address, phone number, and a list of your relatives. That is more information than most people are comfortable having publicly available.
The opt-out process
Go to the Intelius opt-out page at intelius.com/opt-out. You will need to search for your record first to locate your specific profile. Once you find yourself, select your listing and submit the opt-out request. Intelius will send a confirmation email to the address you provide. Click the confirmation link to complete the process.
Processing typically takes up to 72 hours, though in our experience it is often faster. After the opt-out is processed, search for yourself on Intelius again to confirm the removal. Also check the subsidiary sites to make sure the cascade worked.
After Intelius
Removing yourself from Intelius is an important step. Your information likely appears on dozens of other people-search and data broker sites. We have written removal guides for BeenVerified, Whitepages, TruePeopleSearch, and FastPeopleSearch as well. For a complete approach to removing personal data from the internet, working through all of these sites will give you the best results.
Re-listing prevention
One frustration with people-search opt-outs is that your information can reappear over time. These sites continuously scrape public records and other data sources, and new data imports can recreate your profile. Plan to re-check Intelius and the other major people-search sites every few months. If you find yourself re-listed, repeat the opt-out process. It is annoying, but each removal gets easier because you already know the steps.
If you have tried these steps and are still stuck, or if you just do not have the time, we can help. Let us take a look and we will take it from here.
Related resources
- Remove from BeenVerified
- Remove from Whitepages
- Remove from TruePeopleSearch
- Content Removal Services
The bigger picture on people-search data
Intelius is part of a larger industry. The Federal Trade Commission documented how data brokers collect and sell personal information with almost no direct relationship to the people they profile. The agency flagged this problem in its 2014 data brokers report. That report counted more than 200 distinct broker companies operating in the United States at the time. The number has grown considerably since. The FTC's broader privacy and security guidance recommends limiting the personal information you make publicly available in the first place. This is why opting out of sites like Intelius matters before a problem surfaces.
Public sentiment backs that up. A 2019 Pew Research study found that 79 percent of Americans were concerned about how companies use their data, yet most had no idea how many sites held their records or how to remove them. That gap between concern and action is exactly what makes people-search profiles so persistent. EPIC has tracked this problem in depth. Their data broker issue page remains one of the clearest public summaries of how these companies operate and why federal oversight has moved slowly.
Intelius is one of roughly 500 data broker and people-search sites that Privacy Rights Clearinghouse tracks. Their opt-out directory is a useful companion resource once you finish with Intelius and its subsidiaries and are ready to work through the broader list. State-level regulation is catching up, too. The IAPP has published solid analysis on what CCPA and GDPR mean for data brokers specifically. Those frameworks are expanding the formal channels available to consumers who want removal, especially in California and the EU.
How removal works in practice
Medical professionals often find their home addresses and personal cell numbers on Intelius. This can become an issue if a discharged patient searches for them online. An Intelius profile can rank on the first page of Google for a full name. Completing the Intelius opt-out takes only a few minutes. The profile usually deindexes from Google within a few days. We recommend checking the Zabasearch and US Search subsidiaries manually because the cascade only partially applies to those properties sometimes.
Founders preparing for fundraising rounds sometimes discover that their Intelius profiles list old civil court judgments or resolved business disputes. Investors can find this information during due diligence. Submitting the Intelius opt-out helps clear these records. Filing a CCPA deletion request is another option for residents of states with privacy laws. We often flag the same records on multiple data broker sites during a broader audit to keep fundraising conversations moving forward without distraction.
By the numbers
The scope of the people-search industry is worth understanding before you treat an Intelius opt-out as a one-and-done task. The FTC's 2014 data brokers report identified 9 data broker companies that held more than 3,000 data segments on nearly every American adult. That was a decade ago, and the industry has expanded considerably since. The International Association of Privacy Professionals has noted that California's CCPA gave state residents the first broadly enforceable opt-out rights against data brokers in the United States. Even so, compliance audits in 2022 found that many smaller broker sites still processed deletion requests inconsistently. This is why confirming removals manually remains necessary.
Consumer awareness of the problem keeps rising, but action rates stay low. The 2019 Pew Research study that found 79 percent of Americans worried about company data use also found that only 9 percent of those same respondents said they had read a privacy policy in full before agreeing to terms. That gap explains why profiles on sites like Intelius persist. The data flows in automatically through public record scrapes, but removal requires deliberate human steps. The FTC's personal information security guidance specifically calls out people-search sites as a category where consumers should actively monitor their exposure. Monitoring makes sense because Intelius updates its database on a rolling basis. Re-listing can occur within months of a successful opt-out when a new public records scrape pulls in a fresh address or phone number.
If you are thinking about your situation right now, those numbers have a practical implication. A single opt-out buys you time. It rarely results in permanent removal. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse opt-out directory tracks more than 500 data broker and people-search sites as of its most recent update. Intelius and its subsidiaries account for just a handful of them. Working through the full list is time-consuming, but the effort scales. Once you complete Intelius, the process on every other site follows a nearly identical pattern. Setting a quarterly calendar reminder to recheck your top five highest-traffic people-search listings is a highly effective habit.
Managing persistent profiles
Licensed clinical social workers and therapists frequently deal with hostile reviews or unwanted attention from former clients. Even if they do not publicize their home addresses, an Intelius profile can tie their name directly to a residential street and list family members as relatives. Engaging a removal service or manually opting out of Intelius and its subsidiary properties is the best defense. We recommend checking the other people-search sites that surface in the top Google results for your name. A follow-up audit six months later usually finds only a few sites that have re-listed the information. Addressing these profiles helps de-escalate situations by removing home neighborhood information from search results.