Data brokers must verify the identity of the person requesting a data deletion. To do this, they often require additional details beyond a name and address.
For this reason:
- Date of birth is required for all customers
- Phone number is required for U.S. customers only, based on the requirements of U.S. data brokers
These details help data brokers identify your exact profile and distinguish you from others with similar names or locations.
How this information improves removal accuracy
When data brokers build profiles, some details may be missing or incomplete. In many cases, a name and address alone aren’t enough to accurately match a profile, especially if multiple people share similar personal information.
Adding your phone number and date of birth helps:
- Reduce incorrect matches
- Ensure removal requests are applied to the correct profile
- Increase the success rate of data deletion requests
This information is securely added to your Incogni profile and reused for future removal requests, so repeated removals can be handled more efficiently.
How your information is used and protected
Your phone number and date of birth are used only to identify and remove your personal data from data broker databases.
Data brokers are legally prohibited from using this information for any other purpose. This is enforced by privacy regulations such as GDPR, PIPEDA, and CCPA, which limit how personal data can be collected, used, and stored.