Free Data Broker Scan (2026): How to See Who's Listing You
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Data brokers — people-search sites like Spokeo, Whitepages and BeenVerified, and the several hundred less familiar ones behind them — compile your name, age, address history, phone numbers, email addresses, relatives and employer into a profile, then sell access to it. None of this requires a breach or anything illegal. It's assembled from public records, marketing databases and commercial data feeds.
The reasonable first question is how bad it actually is for you specifically. You can answer that for free, and you should, before deciding whether any of this is worth paying to fix.
First, make sure you're checking the right thing
Two scans get confused constantly, and they answer unrelated questions.
A breach scan tells you whether your email address or password turned up in a hacked database — a past security failure at a company you used. Our free email breach checker covers that.
A data broker scan tells you what's being legally compiled and sold about you right now. No hack involved.
You can have a clean breach record and still carry forty broker listings. If what worries you is someone finding your home address, a breach scan won't tell you anything useful — you want the broker scan. Check both eventually; they're separate problems.
Option 1: Optery's free exposure report
Optery is the only service in the category with a permanently free tier rather than a trial, which makes it the practical default for seeing your exposure.
Free Basic includes, per Optery's own pricing page:
- A personalised exposure report with screenshots of the listings found
- A scan of your Google and Bing search results
- Self-service removal tools and instructions
- A phone and email scan preferences tool
- Unlimited name variations and past cities or states for the self-service tools
- Standard email support
The screenshots are the part worth having. A list of URLs tells you a record exists; a screenshot shows you it's carrying your actual former address and your mother's name, which is usually the moment people decide whether they care.
What it does not include: any automated removals. That's explicit — removal filing starts on the paid tiers ($3.99/month or $39/year for Core, which covers 380+ sites but only one name and one city/state; $14.99/month or $149/year for Extended at 555+ sites with unlimited name variations). On the free tier you get the tools and the instructions, and you file each request yourself.
OpteryFree scanDoing this by hand works for the three or four biggest sites. Across the several hundred brokers holding a record on a typical person — each with its own form, its own verification quirk and its own relisting cycle — it stops being realistic. Optery automates that loop and sends before-and-after screenshots as proof.
- Scans hundreds of people-search sites
- Files the opt-outs on your behalf
- Re-scans monthly to catch relistings
- Free tier shows your exposure first
We haven’t completed hands-on testing of Optery, so this describes what it does rather than ranking it against alternatives.
Option 2: Google's "Results about you"
Free, official, and the one most people don't know exists. It's at goo.gle/resultsaboutyou or under your account photo in the Google app.
You tell it which contact details to watch, and it monitors Search for results containing them, notifies you, and lets you request removal and track the status of each request in one place. It covers phone numbers, email addresses and home addresses, and as of February 2026 it also accepts requests for driver's licence, passport and Social Security numbers — a notable expansion, available in the US first.
Its limit is the important bit: it removes results from Google Search, not from the internet. The listing stays live on the broker's own site, findable by anyone who goes there directly or searches Bing. Google may also decline requests for material it considers newsworthy or a matter of public record.
So it's genuinely worth doing — it cuts off the route almost everyone actually uses to look you up — but it treats the symptom rather than the source.
Option 3: look yourself up by hand
Free, immediate, and more informative than people expect.
Search your name on the major people-search sites, and search these variations separately:
- Your name with and without a middle initial
- A maiden name or former legal name
- Common shortenings — Robert and Bob, Katherine and Kate
- Your phone number and email address, which often surface records your name misses
Each variation is usually a separate record. While you're there, the opt-out is free and takes about five minutes — we've written the steps for Spokeo, Whitepages and BeenVerified, which together cover a large share of casual lookups.
Check who owns the scanner
Worth knowing before you hand your details to any free scan: the company showing you the problem is nearly always the company selling the fix. A free scan is a lead-generation product. That isn't sinister on its own — it's the standard arrangement, and it's why a genuinely useful free tier exists at all.
But it has gone wrong in a way worth remembering. Mozilla offered a data-removal service, Monitor Plus, powered by a partner called Onerep. In 2024 KrebsOnSecurity reported that Onerep's founder had also founded people-search sites — the same category of business the service offered to remove customers from. Mozilla said it would wind the partnership down, took until November 2025 to announce it was actually ending, and discontinued Monitor Plus entirely, with subscriber access stopping on 17 December 2025 and prorated refunds issued. Mozilla's free breach monitoring continues; the removal product is gone.
The practical rule: before running a scan, spend thirty seconds on who's behind it. You're handing over your name, your location and an email address — to a company whose business is knowing exactly that about people.
What a free scan won't resolve
A scan gives you the picture. Acting on it at scale is the part that costs money, and the arithmetic is what decides it for most people.
Opting out by hand is completely reasonable for three or four large sites. Past that you're looking at several hundred brokers, each with a different form, a different verification step and its own relisting cycle — and listings genuinely do come back, typically within three to six months and often under a name variation your original request never covered. Opting out is maintenance, not a fix. Doing that maintenance manually, quarterly, across hundreds of sites is a standing commitment almost nobody keeps.
That's the honest case for paying someone, and only at that point:
Two ways to hand this off
Both do the same job across the several hundred brokers you’d never work through by hand. They differ in where you start: one lets you see your exposure before paying anything, the other puts people on it for you.
OpteryFree scanScans hundreds of people-search sites, files the removals for you and re-checks for relistings, with before-and-after screenshots as proof. The exposure scan is free, so you can see what’s out there before deciding whether to pay.
Run a free scan →One of the longest-running services in the category. Real people file the opt-outs on your behalf and send you a report of what came down, then re-check and re-file the listings that reappear. No free tier — use code PARTNER20 for 20% off.
See DeleteMe →We haven’t completed hands-on testing of either service, so this describes how they differ rather than ranking one above the other. Both links are affiliate links.
Before paying either, our DeleteMe vs Optery comparison has the tier-by-tier prices — including the point where the cheaper-looking service stops being the cheaper one.
What this actually buys you
Scanning costs you nothing and tells you something real: whether your current address is one search away, and whether the answer bothers you. For plenty of people it genuinely doesn't, and finding that out for free is a good outcome — it saves you a subscription.
What a scan and a removal service don't do is protect your accounts or your credit. Taking your address off people-search sites makes you harder to find; it does nothing about someone opening a card in your name, because that fraud runs through credit bureaus, not brokers. If that's the worry, it's a different job — our best identity theft protection services guide covers monitoring and recovery, and how to stay private online puts the two halves together.
Sources & References
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a genuinely free data broker scan?
Yes. Optery's Free Basic tier returns a personalised exposure report with screenshots of the listings it finds, covering hundreds of people-search sites plus your Google and Bing results, and it doesn't expire. Google's own 'Results about you' tool is also free and will monitor Search for your phone number, email, home address and — since February 2026 in the US — your driver's licence, passport or Social Security number. Both show you the problem. Neither removes you from the sites themselves.
Does a free scan actually remove my information?
No, and this is the line worth understanding before you start. Free tiers scan and report; automated opt-out filing is the paid feature on every service in the category. Optery's Free Basic gives you self-service removal tools and instructions, but you submit each request yourself. Google's tool removes results from Google Search only — the listing stays live on the broker's own site, reachable by anyone who goes there directly or uses Bing.
Can I remove myself from data brokers for free?
Yes, by hand. Every major people-search site is legally required to offer a free opt-out, and the process takes about five minutes per listing. That's entirely practical for the handful of big sites most casual lookups use. Across the several hundred brokers holding a record on a typical person — each with its own form, verification quirk and relisting cycle, repeated every few months — most people abandon it after the first round.
Is a data broker scan the same as a dark web or breach scan?
No, and they answer different questions. A breach scan tells you whether your email or password appeared in a hacked database — a past security failure. A data broker scan tells you what's being legally compiled and sold about you right now from public records and commercial sources. You can have zero breaches and still have dozens of broker listings. Check both; they're separate problems with separate fixes.
Are free data broker scans safe to use?
Mostly, with one thing to check first: who owns the scanner. Running a scan means handing over your name, location and usually an email address, and the company showing you the problem is nearly always the company selling the fix. That's a normal lead-generation arrangement rather than a scandal — but it has gone wrong. Mozilla ended its data-removal partnership with Onerep in late 2025 after KrebsOnSecurity reported that Onerep's founder had also founded people-search sites, the same kind of business the service offered to remove you from. Check who's behind a scanner before you feed it your details.