If you don’t want to be found through Google – which we can well imagine – you can have your personally identifiable information (PII) removed from the search engine. You can read exactly how to do this in this background article.
In most cases, you can have such information removed without any problems. But sometimes you need to be able to show why something is a problem. This is worth a discussion, but that’s not what this article is about. Before explaining how, it’s a good idea to review what personally identifiable information is and what it contains. PII includes any information you can be recognized as a person and found online. Then consider this:
- Confidential government-issued identification numbers (IDs) such as Social Security Numbers
- Bank account numbers
- credit card numbers
- Images of handwritten signatures
- Images of identity documents
- Highly personal, limited and official data such as medical records
- Personal contact information (physical addresses, phone numbers and email addresses)
- Hidden Login Information
This is data that you do not want to fall into bad hands. Also, most of this information is of no interest to anyone else. Whatever the reason, you can submit a request if you want Google to retrieve this data from the search engine.
Submit a request to Google
You better start with the special page that Google has created for this. There you can learn more about PII and also see how to send a request to delete data. If you don’t want to visit the page and want to make a request right away, you can start immediately via this link.
You can do and adjust various things on the page. On the right you will find the icons of a pencil; with this you set what you want to happen. For example, you can retrieve information that previously appeared to be removed or prevent certain information from ending up in the search engine. You can also specify whether you want to get results from the search engine only or directly from a website.
Obviously, Google doesn’t control the content of a website, so you may need to do some extra work and contact that site’s webmaster. However, if you can’t figure it out, Google can help you with that too.
Confirmation mail
Next, you specify what information you want to remove. You can enter URLs for specific websites or images yourself; Google then takes a look at it and pulls this particular information from the query box. After entering all the information you will receive a confirmation email. If not, you need to go through all the steps again.
Google will review your application and ask for more information as needed and then take action. The company may not accept your request; For example, newsworthy articles or pages containing important information are not simply removed from the search engine.
Source: Computer Totaal
