Protecting your personal information as a law enforcement officer has never been more important. Everyone should be concerned about their online footprint but law enforcement officers and their families have never been more at risk than today thanks to the pervasiveness of online data brokers that sell consumer information. In general, current law enforcement personnel should be more aware of these services than the average person since we use some of these tools during criminal investigations. These sites are generally great investigative tools but they can also be a risk for you and your family as an active undercover agent or if you work in a high profile agency that draws negative public attention.
There are many data removal services on the internet that can assist you with removing your personal information online. For many years I did not want to spend the money for these services since it is an ongoing cost and one more subscription that hurts your monthly budget. Fortunately there are many ways to remove some of this information for free. We previously talked about some of the ways to remove this data yourself in a previous post titled Basic Online Security Tips for ALL Special Agents. Unfortunately if you do it yourself it is a never ending task that you have to continually repeat due to the way data brokers work and how public information is stored, for example like property tax records.
At this point it should be noted that all California Residents now specifically have access to a new site called Delete Request and Opt Out Platform (DROP), which tells all data brokers to delete cease sale of your information. Only California residents are eligible for this service and must provide proof of residency.
Given the reality of new simple AI based research tools and the continuous proliferation of personal data online, instead of doing it myself I finally decided to let someone else do it for me. I found that the opportunity cost of not paying for the service was too great when factoring in the amount of time I would have to spend to continually remove my data from an endless myriad of data broker sites. Unfortunately, there are so many different data removal services online and it can be hard to decide which one to use. In some cases, the most unscruplious sites are the ones both selling your data and charging consumers to protect it! Obviously everyone wants to find the "best one" while also factoring in cost. Another factor I like to consider is who am I supporting. If the options are similar in cost and the service provided then I try to evaluate the company and the people who run it.
I have been aware of a company known as pentester for some time, they are a company that specializes in cyber security and cyber penetration testing. Only recently have they began offering data removal services. One of the reasons I like pentester is because one of their founders, Ryan Montgomery, works with law enforcement in the never ending fight to combat child exploitation. As a Special Agent in the child exploitation world I like the idea of supporting a company with this type of value system.
I began using their data removal services for myself and family and found that it was very easy to get signed up and the cost was very competitive when compared with other similar services. After using the service for a little while and seeing how it worked I decided to reach out to the company to see if they would offer a discount for our readers at the Special Agents blog. Pentester created a promo code for our readers and you can get the discount by using promo code SPECIALAGENTS during sign up. This promo code will give you an initial 15 % discount on their services.
As long as I find this service personally valuable I will keep this post active and continue to recommend their service. Depending on the state you live in, it is also important to remember that some information like public property tax records on government websites can only be removed by you. Every state is different but if they make property tax owner information public I recommend checking with your local county tax office to see if they will remove it for law enforcement personnel. I mention this specifically because property tax records can be one of the easiest ways for the average person to track down a person since most are now readily available to county websites via a simple search feature.
As always, be safe out there and keep up the good work.
