Ask people-search sites to delete your info, with ChatGPT
Sites you've never heard of are publishing your name, your age, your relatives, sometimes your phone number and the cities you've lived in. Most of them have a free opt-out page. The hard part is finding them and filling in the same form fifteen times. ChatGPT Work can search for the listings it can see, write the requests, and check every week for new ones, while you decide what actually gets sent. No search finds everything, so the opt-out list further down is your backup.
You'll have a list of the sites showing your details, a removal request for each one, the official opt-out pages, and a weekly check that tells you what's new.
Before you start
Use ChatGPT Work, not Chat. At the top of chatgpt.com there's a Chat | Work switch. Click Work. The box will say "Work with ChatGPT". Work can search the web, write the requests and set up a weekly task.
Have three things ready: your full name, any other names you've used (maiden name, nickname, a past married name), and the cities and states you've lived in. That's all it needs. If you leave them out, it will stop and ask for them first.
Never give it your birth date, Social Security or SIN number, driver's licence, or full street address. It doesn't need them to search, and ChatGPT itself asks you not to send them.
Keep it all in one chat. Each prompt builds on the last one, so send them one at a time, in the same chat, and wait for each answer.
The weekly check uses Scheduled tasks. Per OpenAI's help page (read October 25, 2026), Free accounts can schedule a recurring task up to once a day, with flexible times like "morning"; exact times need a paid plan. Active-task limits: 3 on Free and Go, 5 on Plus, 10 on Business and Edu, 15 on Pro and Enterprise. Check your own plan for Work itself.
Find the sites listing you
Swap in your own details. Everything in [square brackets] is yours to change.
Prompt 1 · Find the sitesSearch the public internet for me and find every site that is selling, listing or sharing my personal information. My full name: [your full name]. Other names I've used: [maiden name, nicknames, past names]. Cities and states I've lived in: [city, state; city, state]. Don't ask me for my birth date, ID numbers or street address. Give me the results as a table with four columns: the site and the link to my listing, what it shows about me, how sure you are it's me, and that site's official opt-out or removal link. Check the big people-search sites first (Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, TruePeopleSearch, FastPeopleSearch, PeopleFinders, and the PeopleConnect sites like Intelius and TruthFinder), then search beyond them. Don't submit anything or contact any site.
What you'll see (from our two test runs; the screen may change): "Working for…" and "Searching…" with little site icons, for about 30 seconds to a minute. Then a table, one row per site: the listing, what it exposes (age, relatives, phone, past cities, work history), how sure it is ("likely", "low confidence"), and the opt-out link. It may also list other public mentions, like a work profile or an old report with your email in it. Those aren't data brokers, but they're often worth fixing too.
The "how sure" column. Same-name strangers show up a lot. If it asks whether a record in some city is yours, answer yes or no and it carries that into the next steps. Both times we ran it, it said it can't see inside the brokers' private databases, so a short list isn't proof you're not listed. That's what the opt-out list below is for.
Write a removal request for each one
Send this in the same chat, once you've checked the table.
Prompt 2 · Write the requestsNow write a firm removal request for each site in your table, one per site. Use only the details that site already shows about me, and don't add anything new. If the site uses an opt-out form, write the text I'd paste into it. If it takes email, write it as an email with the address and subject line. Put the sites I'm sure about first and skip anything you're not sure is me. Don't send or submit anything.
What you'll see (from our test): one card per site, in a few seconds. Cards marked "Writing" are text to paste into that site's opt-out form. Cards marked "Email" have the To address, a subject line and a Send button. Each request names your listing's link, asks for the profile and anything linked to it to be removed, asks the site to stop selling or sharing it and not to republish it, and asks for written confirmation within 14 days. That's a deadline you're requesting, not one the law sets. If nothing comes back, note the date and send it again.
Anything it added that the site doesn't already show. Take it out. In our test, the email cards sat there with a Send button and nothing went out. Read each one before you click Send.
Optional: have it fill in the forms (untested)
Most opt-out forms want an email address, a captcha, and a click on a link they email you. The tested route is doing those yourself with the text from prompt 2. If you want to try having Work fill them in, this prompt tells it to stop before every Submit.
Prompt 3 · Fill the formsFor each request you wrote, open that site's opt-out page and fill in the form using only the details already on my listing and the request text. Stop before you click Submit or Send on every site, show me exactly what you filled in, and wait for my OK. If a site asks for a photo ID, a payment, or more than it already shows about me, stop and tell me instead of filling it in.
What you'll see: a card that says "Allow ChatGPT to use your [browser]?" with Deny and Allow. Allow lets it read your open tabs and take actions in them. When we clicked Deny, it said it couldn't open the opt-out pages and that it had typed nothing. We didn't test past that point, so we can't tell you how well it handles the forms. If you do allow it, use a separate browser window or profile and close your email, banking and health tabs first.
The captcha and the confirmation email. You do those yourself either way.
Check every week for new or returning listings
People-search sites keep buying fresh data, so a listing you removed can come back. This turns the search into a weekly task.
Prompt 4 · The weekly checkSet this up as a weekly task: every Sunday at 9 AM, search for me again the same way. Tell me which listings are still live, which are new, and which I've asked to remove, with each site's opt-out link. Don't call a listing removed unless the page is really gone, and tell me when a page couldn't be opened or is only an old search snippet. Don't submit anything, send anything or contact any site.
What you'll see (from our test): about 20 seconds, then "Scheduled for every Sunday at 9 AM [your time zone], starting [next Sunday]" and a card with a clock icon, the task's name and an Open button. It writes the task's instructions itself, including the sites it already found, so each week it can compare against the last run.
Click Open and check the day, the time and the instructions it wrote. Make sure "don't submit or contact any site" is in there.
Find, pause or delete the weekly check
From OpenAI's help page on scheduled tasks, read October 25, 2026, and our own test.
- Find it
- The Scheduled icon (a clock) in the left sidebar of chatgpt.com, under Active. Or Settings > Notifications > Manage tasks, or the chat's ••• menu > See scheduled tasks.
- Pause it
- Open the task and click Pause. It moves to Paused in the Scheduled list (we tested this). Click Resume to turn it back on.
- Delete it
- From Scheduled, open the task or use its ••• menu, and choose Delete.
- Deleting the chat
- Pauses the task but doesn't delete it. Deleting the task doesn't delete the chat.
- Notifications
- Settings > Notifications, then pick Push, Email or both.
The opt-out pages
Each one opened in a browser on October 25, 2026. Most free opt-outs work the same way: find your listing, copy its link, enter your email, do a captcha, then click the confirmation link they email you. None of the pages we opened asked for payment. These are US sites and US rules; if you live elsewhere, the sites and your rights will be different.
- Spokeo (opens in a new tab)Page loads; we didn't read the form.
- Whitepages (opens in a new tab)Paste the link to your profile; step 1 of 5.
- BeenVerified (opens in a new tab)Search for your record by name and state.
- PeopleConnect (Intelius, TruthFinder, Instant Checkmate, US Search) (opens in a new tab)Your email, then a verification link; marked free. The page covers PeopleConnect's own sites.
- PeopleFinders (opens in a new tab)Says it's free, with no trial or payment.
- TruePeopleSearch (opens in a new tab)Email, name and captcha, then a link by email to the form.
- FastPeopleSearch (opens in a new tab)Same steps as TruePeopleSearch.
- FastBackgroundCheck (opens in a new tab)Same steps as TruePeopleSearch.
- SearchPeopleFree (opens in a new tab)Same steps as TruePeopleSearch.
- USPhonebook (opens in a new tab)Same steps as TruePeopleSearch.
- ThatsThem (opens in a new tab)Page loads with its removal request.
- Acxiom (a big marketing-data broker, not a search site) (opens in a new tab)Links to the Acxiom Privacy Center.
- Google Search: Results about you (opens in a new tab)Sign in with Google and ask it to remove search results with your contact info. This removes the Google result, not the site's listing.
- California only: DROP (opens in a new tab)One free state-run request to every registered data broker. It asks for your name, date of birth and ZIP code; type your birth date only on privacy.ca.gov itself, never into ChatGPT. Per its page, brokers started processing on August 1, 2026, have up to 90 days to report back, and must re-check at least every 45 days.
The catches
What trips people up, and what to never hand over.
- The confirmation email
- Most opt-outs aren't done until you click the link they send you. Check spam.
- The captcha
- You'll do these yourself.
- The email address
- Most forms need one for the confirmation link. Use an inbox you check, type it straight into the site's own form, and don't hand it to ChatGPT.
- Photo ID or payment
- None of the pages above asked for payment when we opened them. If a site asks for a copy of your ID, a payment, or details it doesn't already show, stop. The requests from prompt 2 already ask the site to say the minimum it needs and to give a secure way to send it.
- One listing at a time
- If a site has several listings for you (old cities, a misspelled name), each usually needs its own request.
- Listings come back
- Sites refresh their data, so a removed listing can reappear. That's what prompt 4 is for.
- Pages change
- If a link here stops working, ask Work: "Find the current official opt-out page for [site]." Use the site's own page, never a paid removal service's page.
- Google lags behind
- A listing gone from the site can still show in search for a while. Results about you is where you ask Google directly.
Safety lines
Keep these in mind at every step.
- Check every action before it happens
- In our test, nothing was sent until a Send button was clicked, and it never was. OpenAI says a scheduled task that would send a message or change something outside ChatGPT may need your approval. Don't count on that; read everything first.
- Say "don't submit or send" in every prompt
- All four prompts above do.
- Give each site only what it already shows
- Plus the email it needs for confirmation. You're asking them to delete data, not to update it.
- Leave out what ChatGPT doesn't need
- Name, other names, cities and states. Nothing more.
- Don't share your task link
- OpenAI's help page says anyone with a shared task link can read the full instructions, and yours will have your name and cities in them.
The idea comes from a reel by Sabrina Ramonov (@sabrina_ramonov).
If you get stuck
It asked for my name and cities before searching.
They weren't in prompt 1. Answer it with cities only, no street address.
It found almost nothing.
That's possible, and it says so itself: it can't see inside the brokers' databases. Go down the opt-out list and search each site yourself.
It listed someone who isn't me.
Tell it "row [x] is not me, take it out." It will leave that one out of the requests and the weekly check.
It says it can't open the opt-out pages.
It needs permission to use your browser for that. Either allow it (with your sensitive tabs closed), or open the links yourself and paste the text from prompt 2.
I hit my scheduled task limit.
Pause or delete another task under Scheduled, then ask again.
Your final check
Tick these as you go. The ticks reset when you leave this page.
Keep going when you’re ready.
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