How To Remove Your Personal Data Appearing In Google Search Results

Google makes it easy to remove personal or sensitive information. The privacy-focused “Results about you” feature has recently become operational. We’ll show you how to request that sensitive information be removed from Google Search.

Typing your name into the search bar and getting a handful of results might be a fun idea, at least until you’re confronted with your own home address or contact number. Thankfully, Google’s new feature helps remove personal information from the web — at least in search results.

What kind of information can Google remove?

The Remove Results About You feature is a tool added to the Google app. It is currently in the beta phase which is available for some and will be rolled out to more Google accounts later. Not all options are included in this version. Otherwise there is a separate Help webpage, which contains more information. Here is the list of information that Google can delete:

• Telephone numbers, e-mail, or residential addresses
• Bank account and credit card numbers
• State ID Numbers
• Pictures of ID cards, documents and handwritten signatures
• Medical Data
• Passwords and Other Credentials

This is how you remove personal data from Google search

Here is a practical guide on how to remove contact number, email, and address on Android smartphones. But first, you need to make sure that the “Results about you” feature is enabled in the Google account settings.

• Open the Google app and select your profile
• Tap on “My data in Google search” and follow the instructions
• Choose “Go to Search”
• Enter your name or address
• Tap the three dots for all results showing your data
• Tap on “Remove Result” and complete the process

Alternatively, you can also simply select the three dots from the individual search results when searching. Then you can finish the process with just a few clicks. The progress of the request can be tracked in the Google account settings under “Results for your Google account”.

Not removed from the web

As Google notes, the data is only removed from the search results. It is still recommended to contact the respective hosting site if the data is to be permanently deleted from the Internet. Considering that Google search accounts for the majority of the search engine market on the World Wide Web, removing sensitive data from Google significantly reduces the risk of unwanted security breaches.