How to Remove Yourself From TruthFinder

To opt out of TruthFinder, follow the opt-out or “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link in the footer of truthfinder.com. It leads to the suppression center run by PeopleConnect, TruthFinder’s parent company, where you verify your email address, search for your record and select it for suppression. It’s free, it typically takes a few days to process, and because the suppression center is shared, one request can also cover sister sites such as Instant Checkmate and Intelius.

The process is short once you’re on the right page. The work is in finding every record that’s yours, confirming the suppression really took, and checking the other people-search sites that show the same details. This guide covers all three. For a plan that covers dozens of sites at once, see our guide to removing yourself from people-search sites.

What TruthFinder shows about you

TruthFinder sells background reports built from public records and commercial data. A report can include your name and aliases, age, current and past addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, relatives and associates, social media profiles, and criminal, traffic or court records where they exist. The search results page shows a preview; the full report sits behind a paid membership.

Like its sister sites, TruthFinder says it isn’t a consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and its terms prohibit using reports to make decisions about employment, housing, credit or insurance. Employers and landlords are supposed to use FCRA-compliant screening companies for that. Those companies come with your right to see and dispute what they report, which people-search sites don’t offer.

That distinction matters for what an opt-out can achieve. Suppression hides your record from TruthFinder’s search. It doesn’t touch the court file, the county property record or the old news story the data came from.

Before you start

• Set up a separate email address for privacy requests. The suppression center asks you to verify one, and a dedicated address keeps your main inbox from being confirmed to another data business.
• List your identifiers. Every name you’ve used (maiden name, nicknames, with and without a middle initial), the states you’ve lived in over the last decade or so, and your date of birth, which the form may ask for to narrow the search.
• Start on the real site. Type truthfinder.com yourself and use the footer link rather than clicking an ad. Some look-alike pages charge for “removal” they have no power to perform.
• Keep a log. A note or spreadsheet with each record you suppressed, the date, and the date you checked it will save time at every re-check.

Step by step: the TruthFinder opt out

1. Open the opt-out link. On truthfinder.com, scroll to the footer and follow the opt-out, privacy or “Do Not Sell or Share” link. It takes you to the PeopleConnect suppression center.
2. Verify your email. Enter your email address and click the link, or enter the code, from the verification email. Check spam and promotions folders if it doesn’t arrive within a few minutes.
3. Enter your identifying details. Fill in your name and whatever else the form asks for so it can search for matching records.
4. Review the matches carefully. Compare the age, locations and relatives with your own before selecting anything, particularly if your name is common.
5. Select your record and confirm the suppression. You may be asked to tick a box confirming the record is yours or that you’re authorized to act for the person.
6. Search again with name variations. Repeat for every name you’ve used and suppress each record that’s yours. Different spellings can produce separate records.
7. Save proof. Screenshot the confirmation screens and keep the emails, with dates.

Suppression typically takes a few days, and it can take a little longer to show on every site the center covers. After a week or so, search your name on TruthFinder and the sister sites to confirm you no longer appear. The wording of the pages changes from time to time, but the basic flow (verify email, find record, suppress) has stayed consistent.

What the TruthFinder opt out covers and what it doesn’t

Item	Covered by suppression?
The record you selected on TruthFinder	Yes, once the request is processed.
Sister sites that use the same suppression center	Often, though it’s worth checking each one yourself.
Other records under different names	Only if you find and suppress them too.
Reports someone already bought	No. Anything already viewed or saved can’t be recalled.
Independent people-search sites	No. Each has its own opt-out.
The original public record	No. Court and property records exist independently.

If you live in a state with a comprehensive privacy law, you may also be able to send a formal deletion request through the privacy request link on the site. That’s a different request from suppression: suppression hides your record from search, while a deletion request asks the company to delete the personal information it holds, subject to the exceptions your state’s law allows.

Check the sister sites

PeopleConnect runs several people-search brands, and suppression through its center is designed to apply across them. In practice, it’s still worth searching yourself on each one a week or two later, because records can be matched differently from site to site. Our guides to the Instant Checkmate opt-out and the Intelius opt-out cover what those sites show and how to confirm you’re gone.

Beyond the sister sites, TruthFinder’s data overlaps with most of the big people-search sites. If you’re listed here, you’re almost certainly on Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, FastPeopleSearch and others too. Our data broker opt-out list sets out which ones to tackle first.

If your TruthFinder report shows a criminal record

A lot of people look up their TruthFinder report because of what it says about an arrest, a charge or a court case. Suppressing the record removes that report from TruthFinder, which helps. But the same information can reach other sites from the same court or police source, sometimes years later.

If the record was dismissed, sealed or expunged, or if it belongs to someone else with your name, the more durable fix is at the source. Our guide on removing public records from the internet explains the options. Whether you qualify for expungement or sealing depends on your state and the details of the case, so talk to a lawyer or a local legal aid organization before you rely on it.

Clean up the Google result

TruthFinder pages sometimes rank on Google for people’s names, and the snippet can keep showing your age, city or relatives after the record itself has been suppressed. Once the page no longer shows your details, use Google’s “Refresh outdated content” tool to ask Google to update or drop the result.

Google’s Results about you tool can also alert you when your phone number, home address or email appears in search results and lets you ask Google to remove those results. Removing the source and cleaning up the search result are separate jobs, and you usually need both.

State privacy rights that can help

A growing number of states give residents the right to ask businesses, including data brokers, to delete personal information or stop selling it. California goes further: under the Delete Act, the state runs the Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP), which lets California residents send one deletion request to data brokers registered in the state. It works alongside site-by-site opt-outs rather than replacing them.

Your rights, and the exceptions, depend on where you live. Our guide to the California Delete Act explains how DROP works if you’re a California resident. Wherever you are, the TruthFinder opt-out is available and is usually the quickest way to get your record out of search.

A worked example

This is an illustrative scenario, not a real client.

Dana, a nurse who recently moved states, is told by a friend that a TruthFinder ad showed her name alongside “arrest records may be available.” She searches herself and finds a record with her new address, her old address and her brother’s name.

• She creates a new email address for privacy requests and opens the opt-out link from the TruthFinder footer.
• She verifies her email, searches her current name, confirms the record matches her age and relatives, and suppresses it.
• She searches her maiden name and finds a second, older record from her previous state. She suppresses that one too and screenshots both confirmations.
• A week later she checks TruthFinder, Instant Checkmate and Intelius. Neither record appears. A Google snippet still shows her old city, so she submits a refresh request.
• The “arrest record” turns out to belong to a different person with a similar name, which she notes in case it appears on another site.

Without the second search under her maiden name, the older record, with her previous address, would have stayed visible.

Common mistakes

• Paying for removal. The official suppression is free. Any page asking for payment isn’t TruthFinder’s.
• Stopping at the first record. Search every name variation and suppress each match.
• Skipping the email verification. Nothing is processed until you complete it.
• Assuming the sister sites are covered without checking. They usually are, but confirm it.
• Treating it as permanent. New data can create a new record. Put a reminder in your calendar.
• Ignoring Google. The old snippet can linger until Google recrawls the page.

Keep it from coming back

People-search records are rebuilt from fresh data. A move, a new phone number or a name change can create a new record that the old suppression doesn’t cover. Search yourself on TruthFinder and its sister sites every three to four months, and soon after any major change. If you find a new record, suppress it the same way.

When to get help

You can do all of this yourself, and most people should. Help makes sense when your details are spread across many sites, when a safety concern means removals need to happen fast and be checked often, or when people-search listings are only part of a wider problem with what appears for your name. Our guide on whether data removal services are worth it explains what paid services do and don’t add. Our personal reputation management service handles opt-outs, re-checks and the wider cleanup, and we’ll tell you plainly what can be removed and what needs ongoing monitoring.

Frequently asked questions

Is the TruthFinder opt out free?

Yes. You don’t need a membership, an account or a payment. You’ll verify an email address through the suppression center, then find and suppress your record.

How long does TruthFinder take to remove my record?

Suppression typically takes a few days to process, and a little longer to show on every sister site. Google may keep showing an old result until it recrawls the page or you submit a refresh request.

Does opting out of TruthFinder remove me from Instant Checkmate and Intelius?

Often, yes, because they share the PeopleConnect suppression center. Records can be matched differently across sites, so search yourself on each one a week or two later to confirm.

Why is my information back on TruthFinder?

Usually because new data, such as a new address or phone number, created a new record rather than updating the one you suppressed. Search again and suppress the new record.