What identity thieves already know about you

and where they bought it

For about $0.50, someone can buy your name, home address, phone number, and email from a data broker. For a few dollars more, they get your estimated income, your relatives’ names, and your voting record.

Identity theft doesn’t start with a hack. It starts with a purchase.

There are more than 400 companies in the U.S. that collect and sell personal information legally. They scrape public records, purchase histories, and online activity, then package it into profiles that anyone can buy. Marketers use them. Insurance companies use them. And increasingly, scammers and identity thieves use them as a starting point to build convincing fraud schemes.

Three services now handle removal from these broker databases for you, starting under $8/month. Aura stood out to us because it pairs data removal with full identity theft protection: credit monitoring, dark web alerts, fraud insurance, and expert remediation if something goes wrong. You can try it free for 14 days.

Best data removal services compared

How your information ends up in a broker’s database

Every time you register to vote, buy a house, sign up for a loyalty program, or fill out a form online, data about you gets collected. Public records, purchase history, browsing habits, and social media profiles all feed into a network of companies that package and resell personal information.

These companies build profiles that include your name, home address, phone number, email, estimated income, age, and your relatives’ names. They sell that data to marketers, insurers, political campaigns, and anyone else willing to pay. That includes people running phishing operations, robocall schemes, and identity theft rings.

That’s why a robocaller already knows your name before you pick up. It’s why you get targeted mail from companies you’ve never contacted. The more a scammer knows about you before making contact, the harder it is to tell a legitimate call from a fraudulent one.

Removing your data is step one. Here’s what it doesn’t cover.

Getting your information off data broker sites is worth doing. It cuts off the supply of fresh data and reduces your exposure to new scams and spam. Every service on this page handles that process well.

But removal has a blind spot. If someone already purchased your data before a removal request went through, that copy doesn’t get recalled. It’s already in their system, ready to be used for a phishing attempt, a fraudulent credit application, or a scam call that references your address to sound legitimate.

That’s the gap between removal and protection. Removal cleans up what’s listed. Protection covers you when the damage is already done: monitoring your credit across all three bureaus, scanning the dark web for your leaked credentials, alerting you when someone tries to open an account in your name, and backing you with insurance if the worst happens.

Only one service on this list covers both sides. Aura handles data broker removal and runs continuous monitoring with up to $1 million in identity theft insurance per adult. If you want removal and protection in one subscription, that’s where we’d start.

Three services worth comparing

We compared what’s available for people who want their personal information removed from data broker sites. These three stood out, but they cover different ground. One handles removal and full identity protection. The other two focus on removal only, at a lower price.

What happens after you sign up

After you create an account with any of these services, the process is mostly hands-off. You provide your name, email, and home address. The service scans broker sites for matches, then begins sending removal requests on your behalf.

With Aura, you also set up credit monitoring and dark web scanning during onboarding. The identity protection features activate immediately, so you’re covered while the data removal process runs in the background. Most initial scans complete within the first two weeks.

One thing to keep in mind: removal is not permanent. Data brokers re-scrape public records regularly, which means your information can reappear. That’s why all three services include recurring scans and re-submissions. The difference between paying for a service and doing it yourself is that they handle that cycle month after month.