How to Protect Your Privacy After Divorce
Your address, phone number, and location history are sitting on 400+ data broker websites right now. Anyone with your name can find your new home. Here is how to take that back.
You changed the locks. You changed your number. You started over in a new place — or you're trying to.
What you may not know: none of that matters if your personal information is still sitting on hundreds of data broker websites. These are companies that collect, aggregate, and sell personal data — your current address, your previous addresses, your phone number, your relatives' names, your approximate daily location patterns. They get this data from public records, retail loyalty programs, social media, voter rolls, and dozens of other sources.
And anyone — your ex, their attorney, someone they sent, or someone they hired — can search your name and find your new address in about 45 seconds.
This is not a theoretical risk. It is a documented pattern in domestic violence and high-conflict divorce cases. And the fix is available, automated, and does not require a lawyer.
What Data Brokers Actually Have on You
More than most people realize. A typical data broker profile includes:
- Your current address and every previous address on record
- Your phone numbers — current and historical
- Your email addresses
- Your relatives' names and their addresses
- Your estimated age, income range, and household size
- Your social media profiles and usernames
- Court records, including divorce proceedings and judgment information
- Property ownership records
This information is legally aggregated from public sources and sold. Most data brokers have an opt-out process — but there are hundreds of them, the processes are different for each, and they repopulate your information regularly from new sources.
The Manual Option — and Why It Usually Fails
You can opt out of data brokers manually. The process looks like this: find the broker's opt-out page (often buried), submit a request with your personal information, wait for confirmation, and repeat this for each of the 400+ brokers that might have your data.
The average time to manually opt out of one data broker is 10–15 minutes. At 400 brokers, that is 65+ hours of work. And that's assuming each broker honors the opt-out — many don't, or their records repopulate from new data sources within weeks.
Manual opt-out is possible. It is not realistic.
The Automated Option — What HER Recommends
Optery is the #1 rated personal data removal service per Consumer Reports and has been named PCMag Editors' Choice four consecutive years. It covers 635+ data brokers, runs automated monthly scanning and removal, and provides live screenshot proof that your profiles were actually removed — not just flagged.
For someone leaving a marriage or dangerous relationship, the specific features that matter: Optery sends opt-out requests on your behalf, monitors for repopulation, and sends you reports showing exactly where your data was found and removed. The family plan covers multiple people — relevant if you have minor children whose information you also want removed.
Their plans start with a free tier that shows you your current exposure before you pay anything. HER recommends starting there so you can see exactly what's out there with your name on it.
Search your own name on a people search site before your ex does. What you find is what they can find. The goal is to make that search return nothing useful.
The Full Privacy Protection Checklist
Data removal is step one of several. Here is the complete post-divorce privacy stack:
Use Optery to begin automated removal across 635+ brokers. Takes about 15 minutes to set up. Monthly monitoring runs automatically from there.
Go to equifax.com, experian.com, and transunion.com and place a credit freeze — free by law. This prevents anyone from opening new credit accounts in your name. Unfreeze temporarily when you need to apply for something yourself.
Use Spokeo to see what's publicly available under your name and your children's names. Request removal directly from any profiles you find. Note what information appears so you know what to address first.
Set all profiles to private. Remove your location from your bio. Turn off location tagging on photos. Check that your Facebook profile doesn't show your city, workplace, or relationship status.
When forwarding mail through USPS, be aware that change-of-address forms become public records in some states. Consider getting a PO Box or using a mail forwarding service as your mailing address rather than your physical address.
Voter registration, vehicle registration, and professional licenses often contain your home address and are public records. Contact your county clerk or state DMV about address confidentiality programs — many states have them specifically for domestic violence survivors.
If You Are in a High-Risk Situation
If you are leaving a situation where physical safety is a concern, the standard data removal timeline is too slow. Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) about address confidentiality programs in your state — these programs allow you to use a substitute address for all legal and government purposes, shielding your real location from public records entirely.
These programs exist specifically because data broker exposure is a documented safety risk. You do not have to wait for records to propagate and then request removal. You can shield your new address from the start.
For emotional support navigating this transition, Online-Therapy.com offers secure, confidential therapy from home with real licensed therapists. Use code THERAPY20 for 20% off your first month.
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