We can’t always be sure if a particular data broker has your personal data.This is because the majority of data brokers operating in the United States are what we call private-database data brokers. These brokers don’t sell data directly to the public, preferring to deal in larger datasets that they sell to other businesses. They don’t have publicly searchable databases that we could check ourselves to see if a given data broker has your data.
In cases like these, Incogni uses an algorithm to predict how likely it is that a particular data broker has your data. This means that there can be false-positive cases where we request data removal from companies that don’t have your data. Even then, your details (used to identify your profiles with brokers) are protected by the same legislation that forces data brokers to remove records when asked to do so.
Some data brokers, like people search sites, show the results they have about a person publicly. In these cases, we perform random checks and file complaints if we find that a company in fact failed to comply with a data removal request.