Instant Checkmate is a people serch site that publishes a vast array of personal information, including names, previous names, aliases, birthdate, addresses, employment history, and other sensitive details. This data is readily available to anyone willing to pay, which poses significant risks, including phishing attempts, fraud, identity theft, and implications for your future opportunities.
In an ideal world, the collection and sale of sensitive personal information would be illegal. However, current legislation permits companies to gather and share records already in the public domain.
In this guide, we will explain what Instant Checkmate does, and walk you through the process of opting out of Instant Checkmate. We will explain how to leverage data privacy rights outlined in regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and other relevant privacy laws to compel data brokers to remove your personal information from their databases.
What is Instant Checkmate?
Instant Checkmate is a data broker that uses thousands of publicly available sources to collect data about individuals. It has an online platform that provides public records search capabilities, which means that it sells user data to anybody willing to pay.
The website gives users the ability to quickly access comprehensive background information about anybody. This creates substantial risks for the people held in its database.
The extent of personal data held by people finder and data broker sites like Instant Checkmate is deeply concerning, and the fact that it sells that data without oversight to anybody willing to pay results in substantial concerns.
The good news is that you can ask for your data to be removed from data brokers like Instant Checkmate. However, we recommend you read this guide in its entirety because removing information from data brokers is an ongoing process.
How do companies like Instant Checkmate get data?
Data brokers like Instant Checkmate gather your data automatically by searching and scraping the public web. Your data can be collected from public records, social media, or even other people search sites. Apps and websites that collect personal data also sell your data to data brokers like Instant Checkmate.
In most cases, individuals can request people search sites to remove their personal data. However, a company that has previously been asked to comply with a data removal request can legally re-acquire your data. As a result, consumers need to monitor data brokers like Instant Checkmate regularly and keep asking for their data to be removed periodically.
This puts a burden on consumers and leaves companies like Instant Checkmate laughing all the way to the bank. Below, we have provided the best solution to remove yourself from all data brokers, which is to use a trustworthy data removal service.
Our favorite personal data-removal service: Incogni
If you want the best value method for removing your data from Instant Checkmate and over 180 other data brokers, data aggregators, and people finder websites, then we strongly recommend Incogni.
The service is run by the company behind Surfshark, a trusted VPN that is well-known for its fantastic no-logging data practices, strong privacy policies, and fully audited apps. This puts the data removal service in extremely capable hands.
One of the main advantages of Incogni is that it does not require you to hand over a huge amount of data upfront. This is comforting because it doesn’t have a large amount of your personal data sitting around in its possession.
This is beneficial for two reasons, firstly it removes the risk that your data could potentially be stolen from Incogni during a data breach.
It also prevents the company from complying with a government request for your data. Even if authorities did serve Incogni a warrant and a gag order, it would only have your payment details, name, and address.
This is a minimal amount of data when compared with the huge list of personal data you must provide to alternate services like DeleteMe.
A subscription to Incogni starts at just $77.88 per year. This works out to $6.49 per month, which makes it the cheapest personal data removal service currently available on the market. If that still sounds like too much, you can opt for the $12.99 monthly plan.
Incogni is available in the US, Canada, the UK, and most of Europe. And it is extremely hands-off. Once you’ve signed up, your part is done. All you need to do is monitor the dashboard to see how your removals are going.
How to opt out of Instant Checkmate with Incogni
Removing your data from Instant Checkmate and 180+ data brokers is extremely easy using Incogni. Just follow the steps below:
- Start by registering for an Incogni account. You have the option to subscribe for a single month at $12.99 USD or enjoy savings of up to 50 percent with a longer subscription.
- Complete the onboarding process and provide Incogni with the necessary permissions to submit removal requests on your behalf. You will only need to provide minimal information to get the process started.
- Incogni will now begin the process of sending out takedown notices to more than 180 people finder sites and data aggregators. It targets all the most important services, to give you peace of mind.
- Keep an eye on your dashboard. You should start seeing completed requests within the first few days. In approximately one month, most of the contacted data brokers should have removed your information.
Incogni continually updates its list of data brokers and regularly checks with those it has already contacted to ensure they haven’t re-published your data. The company is very persistent and will continue to send requests to each data broker until they have responded and removed your data.
If you have any questions, you can use the ticket system to send an email to get assistance. The Incogni website is full of useful information about the service, including FAQs that help you to understand everything. Otherwise, the service will operate seamlessly in the background, requiring no further effort on your part.
How to remove your data from Instant Checkmate manually
The most cost-effective method to opt out of Instant Checkmate is to contact the company yourself. You can invoke your right to be removed from their publicly available database by using the PeopleConnect Suppression Center. This is a tool that allows you to proactively control the visibility of your public information on people search websites operated by PeopleConnect, including Instant Checkmate.
Using this data suppression tool will remove your personal data from results displayed by TruthFinder.com, InstantCheckmate.com, Intelius.com, and USSearch.com. The tool is completely free to use, but it is important to note that this is a suppression tool. Thus, PeopleConnect is admitting that it will keep your data on ice.
In addition, the small print for the tool warns you that:
“The suppression tool only applies to the Public Data displayed on the people search sites in the PeopleConnect families. It does not apply to the User Data collected by those sites, nor does it apply to other sites in the PeopleConnect family, including Classmates.com. To exercise your available rights with respect to your User Data on those sites, please visit those sites.”
This is an important point, and it is worth remembering that requesting for your data to be removed from visibility on Instant Checkmate, or any other individual data broker site, is limited to that site only. Your data is still being held by other data brokers, is still visible on many other data broker and people finder websites, and it is only a matter of time before your data is made public again on Instant Checkmate too.
How can I remove my personal data from all data brokers permanently?
It is currently impossible to request for your data to be removed from all data brokers in one go by yourself. Instead, you must contact hundreds of individual data brokers. Needless to say, this is a hugely time-consuming task.
And because aggregators and people finder sites will only suppress your data for a certain amount of time, you need to repeat the process at least once a year to be sure that your digital footprint stays clean.
So, what is the solution to this seemingly endless problem?
Data removal services can carry out removal requests on your behalf. These companies not only ask for your data to be removed, but check that the removal request was successful. They also repeat the process once every few months to ensure that your data stays off data broker sites for good.
Of course, the caveat to all of this is that you will need to keep subscribing to one of these services to guarantee that your data stays off Instant Checkmate and hundreds of other data broker websites. If you stop retaining the services of one of these companies, your data will resurface.
Why should I opt out of Instant Checkmate?
Having your data available on people finder websites and data aggregation sites offers little to no benefit. While you may hold onto a glimmer of hope that a long-lost relative might discover you and reveal an unexpected inheritance, the reality is far from such fantasies.
These websites pose a significant threat to your privacy, serving as gateways for malicious actors to track you down. Typically, this leads to unwelcome scenarios, such as receiving bills you didn’t anticipate or, worse yet, falling victim to phishing attacks and other cyber threats.
People finder websites are frequently utilized by cyberstalkers to locate their targets. They also cause immense distress to individuals in abusive relationships who are trying to start anew.
We hope that government intervention will eventually stop intrusive data brokers. For now, your best defense is to be mindful about sharing information online, only doing so when absolutely necessary.
Below, we’ve outlined some of the data that people can obtain from data brokers and people finder sites:
- Full names, including maiden names and any aliases you use
- Current and previous addresses
- Recent photographs
- Your age, date of birth, and, in some cases, a copy of your birth certificate
- Any associated cell phone numbers and email addresses
- Social media and dating profiles, along with your usernames
- Educational and employment history, property records, and vehicle information
- Indicators like hunting licenses, weapons permits, or concealed carry permits
- Criminal records, if applicable
- Details from your Amazon wishlist
- Marriage history
- Bankruptcy records
- Voter registration information
- Information about your neighbors, relatives, and cohabitants
- Purchase history data, often obtained from financial institutions like banks
Taking control of your data privacy by opting out of services like Instant Checkmate is a crucial step in safeguarding your personal information and reducing your vulnerability to privacy breaches.
