Online Privacy and Security Tutorials, Guides, and Education

Learning Center

Welcome to the RemoveMyPhone Learning Center. Here you'll find comprehensive and detailed tutorials, guides, tips & tricks, and education about online privacy, security, cyberbullying, data protection, data removal from Google search results and data broker sites, social media privacy settings, phone privacy settings, and many other technology, security, and privacy-related topics. Learn how to protect your online privacy and keep your phone number, name, and address off Google search results and people lookup and data broker sites.

Privacy Nutrition Labels From Apple

A great new privacy reporting feature for Apple users that mimics the familiar nutritional labels on food. Disclosure is a great first step towards keeping safe from apps, but there's still a long way to go....

Google Is Murdering Ad-Blockers

Google's Manifest Version 3 changes for its Chrome Browser are going to severely limit the privacy of users and the potential for innovation within web browsers. Google's plan makes running an ad-blocker almost an impossible exercise in futility and competition with advertisers who can make changes faste...

Google is harming ad-blockers and putting in place systems that benefit them financially.

How to Remove Your Phone Number For Free: All Opt-Out Guides

This page references the full list of RemoveMyPhone's free personal privacy resources to remove yourself from various individual data brokers. We give away our knowledge for your benefit....

All sites you can remove your phone numbers for free.

Security Risks From Expiring Domain Names

When domain names accidentally expire or get hijacked, this not only causes pain for a business trying to operate, but also poses security and privacy issues for the general public. A trusted domain name can be used by bad actors for very harmful purposes, including installing malware on your machine, ph...

Don't forget your expiring domain names.

Apple Privacy News

Many important privacy developments have taken place in Tim Cook's company in the past week. Here we help keep you informed about what's going on so you can spend less time worrying about privacy issues with your iPhone or Apple computer. Some of these pieces of news are arguably good or bad, but the mos...

Apple's privacy reports will inform you about background processes of your favorite apps that might impact your privacy.

Delete Your CheckThem Personal Information From the Internet

Remove your phone number off of CheckThem.com with the free RemoveMyPhone guide that illustrates how to opt out of their data broker service. CheckThem is a data broker, people search engine, and public records search tool that co...

Christmas Gifts Are Spying On You

Smart devices are a dumb idea. Many devices have cameras, micrphones, Wi-Fi connections, and sell your location and other data to data brokers. Pay attention to how your devices work, what data they might store, and whether they connect to an App or not. If you are as concerned about your family's privac...

Some of your Christmas gifts might have a negative impact on your life.

Russian Hackers Infect Over 1 Million Computers And Steal Personal Data

Google recently announced their attempt at shutting down a giant botnet that was stealing private details as well as electricity and cryptocurrency from Windows PC users. This attack again allegedly originated from Russia. Learnin...

A giant global botnet that was harming Windows users may have been disrupted by Google.

Expensive Cars Are Being Stolen With Apple Airtags: Location Data Can Harm.

There are many examples of how physical location data can cause physical harm. The rise of location based tracking devices is only increasing this problem. This technology has amazing potential to positively impact lives, but also...

Bluetooth tracking devices can help you find your lost stuff, but it comes with a price.

Top Privacy Games On Steam

There are many fascinating computer games on Steam that use privacy as a core story element or gameplay mechanic. Here are a few of our staff's favorites. These games make you think about the state of the world, showcase some interesting moral dilemmas, and can even expand your mind. If you're a gamer, y...

Privacy Related Video games are pushing the boundaries of story-telling.

Computer Scientists Invent SugarCoat Privacy Tool

California Computer Scientists have contributed something very interesting for privacy today. The new SugarCoat tool might prevent advertisers from getting access to browsing data and get access to a lot of users' private information. Various ad-blockers are already very powerful and capable, but this ap...

Computer scientists have developed a mind-blowing new technique to defend you from advertisers.

Florida's Broward County Schools Warn 50,000 Students Of Massive Data Breach

About 50,000 Broward County students and employees are now being notified by the Broward County school district in Florida that their personal data may have been breached during a ransomware attack many months ago. The school dist...

Florida's Broward County public schools system was the victim of a hacking attack that exposed the social security numbers and names of 50,000 students and employees.

Cool Privacy Gift Ideas

With Christmas and other gift-giving Holidays rapidly approaching, some fun gift ideas could be devices and tools to enhance their privacy, personal safety, and security. It's always something worth keeping in mind in these turbulent times. Also, these can be fun, useful, and versatile gifts for people....

Definition Of Personally Identifiable Information

What does personally identifiable information really refer to? For most of this century's history, personally identifiable information (PII) basically meant email address, telephone number and mailing address. Everyone in the advertising technology world built their platforms based on the concept that PI...

For most of this century's history, personally identifiable information (PII) basically meant email address, telephone number and mailing address. Everyone in the advertising technology world built their platforms.

Congresswomen Are Hopeful That Reintroducing An Online Privacy Bill Will Work This Time

Privacy focused bills have been introduced as recently as 2019 but never seemed to gain any kind of traction or public attention. Will it work this time around? Will it gain any public support and attention like the Net Neutrality...

Will Congress care about privacy for real this time?

Could Posting On Facebook Screw Your Credit Score?

Data brokers gather a wide range of data about you. This might not just be limited to advertising, but also to your personal financial life. Have you ever been denied when you requested a loan from your bank or signed up for a credit card that you felt you should qualify for? That's extremely frustrating...

Could your social media activity be harming your personal finances in a big way?

AWS Cloud Leaks ID Cards And Fingerprints

Another day, another big privacy breach from the AWS Cloud. No system is 100% perfect, and this time some significant damage was done because an unprotected S3 bucket exposed 2.6 million records on Americans. Sometimes technology is really hard to get right in the absolutely most important and critical m...

Gmail Smart Features Privacy Settings

In a rare privacy improvement for Google, Alphabet announces new privacy options for Gmail and other products....

Google adding mass privacy settings to Gmail.

European Politicians Want To Scan All Phone Messages

Politicians in Europe want to scan all encrypted phone messages to protect the children. Does this raise significant privacy concerns, and can this type of policy make its way to the United States? In a free society, people expect to have the right to legally communicate without government interference: ...

Smartphone scanning legislation brings up numerous privacy and free-speech concerns.

Even Going To Trader Joes Can Compromise Your Privacy

Are people excited about a world where going grocery shopping might lead to big corporations gaining lots of unnecessary information about you, your devices, your behavior, and other intimate details? As part of a new parking system, customers at this Trader Joes will now either have to download an App b...

Parking is already bad enough without worrying about your entire life being ruined due to some data breach or security problem with an App. Customers at Trader Joe's will now either have to download an App built by Metropolis Technologies or insert their license plate number into a kiosk in order to park in the parking lot.

Opt-Out Guide For PeopleLooker Search Engine

Remove Your Phone Number Off of the PeopleLooker.com data broker site with RemoveMyPhone's free digital data removal guide....

Why Political Doxxing Is A Danger

Election 2020 Political Extremism and Doxxing is a concern about the character of the country going forward. Americans should be prepared to keep themselves safe and consider the risks of getting doxxed over politics as the risks are more clear than ever....

Political Doxxing Leads To Many Privacy and Safety Concerns

Robinhood Hack Exposed The Personal Data Of 7 Million Customers

Robinhood, the popular stock-trading app, acknowledged that a recent data breach has compromised the personal information of roughly 7 million of its customers. In a "data security incident" on the evening of November 3, 2023, Rob...

COVID-19 Caused A Massive Spike In Worker Surveillance

COVID-19 has led to a massive spike in worker and government surveillance. And it's all part of the plan: Governments and tech companies want to make intrusive surveillance so pervasive that people will start to think that it's a normal part of our daily lives, like brushing our teeth or putting on shoes...

Arizona School Board Allegedly Does Background Checks On Parents Angry Over Critical Race Theory And Mask Mandates

The latest example of how having your personal information out there on the Internet can be harmful to you is here. This time it comes comes from Arizona, where Scottsdale School Board President Jann-Michael Greenburg is accused o...

Parents of a Scottsdale School were shocked to learn that the School Board President was compiling secret dossiers on parents that were against critical race theory and mask mandates.

Phishing Attacks From Link Unfurling

In many modern apps, from Twitter and WhatsApp to Facebook and Slack, whenever you copy/paste a link to a friend or co-worker, the link will often have a small preview box that provides a thumbnail preview image of the page along with a small description gathered from the site's meta tags used to describ...

Phishing attacks can even be directed from legitimate sources with HTTP header manipulation. Always use caution when clicking links: even when you think it's from a legitimate source and see a link preview that looks genuine.

The IRS Is Buying Massive Amounts Of Personal And Location Data From Data Brokers To Target Americans

The US Treasury purchased two powerful new data feeds from the notorious data broker Babel Street: one for its sanctions enforcement branch, and one for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Both feeds enable government use of sensi...

Check If Your Data Has Been Leaked On The Dark Web

If your personal data has been leaked or compromised or hacked, you often won't learn about it until companies like T-Mobile, Facebook, Marriott, DoorDash, LinkedIn or any other company you've trusted with your information notifies you about a data breach. By that time it's too late - your passwords, Soc...

Are your passwords or other pieces of personal information on the dark web? RemoveMyPhone can help you check what leaked after a data breach and get rid of that data to keep you safe.

Apple Privacy Features Cost Social Media Giants Billions

Apple has a mixed track record when it comes to privacy, albeit generally with more privacy wins than losses, but there's no doubt that Apple's new App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework is helping protect at least some user data from flowing to social media firms. A report by Lotame, an advertising t...

Apple has had a mixed track record on privacy lately, but this time some of their privacy features actually helps protect consumers against social media overreach in a big way.

Here's What You Need To Do If Your Personal Data Has Been Leaked, Hacked, or Breached

Even if you do 100% of things correctly, you can still sometimes become a victim through no fault of your own. Avoiding hacks isn't always possible, but there are ways to mitigate the damage and limit your exposure. Hacks and data...

The number of publicly reported data breaches from the beginning of 2021 to the end of September totaled 1,291, a 17% increase from the total reported throughout all of 2020.

Another Day, Another Massive Data Breach and Ransomware Attack

TV giant Sinclair Broadcast Group said Monday that it's suffered a data breach and is still working to determine what information the data contained. The company said it started investigating the potential security incident on Sat...

TV giant Sinclair Broadcast Group has confirmed that it has suffered a massive data breach and ransomware attack that has crippled its operations and exposed customer data.

How To Stop Your Phone And Other Smart Devices From Listening To You

If you've ever thought someone was secretly eavesdropping on you, you might be right. Smartphones and other devices can hear and record what you say, as proven by a now-viral TikTok that showed thousands of audio files recorded on...

Smartphones and other devices can hear and record what you say, as proven by a now-viral TikTok that showed thousands of audio files recorded on a woman's Echo and Dot speakers and saved in the innermost folders of her Amazon account.

Congress Says That The Facebook Monopoly Hurts Citizens' Privacy

Remember seeing all of those technology company CEOs sweating in front of Congress in recent years and months? Well, a little news has emerged from that. In a rare display of Congress actually attempting to do their job, the House...

In a rare display of Congress actually attempting to do their job, the House Judiciary Committee unveiled its conclusions from the technology company hearings on anti-trust law, user privacy, and other related issues on whether Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google are violating antitrust law and are doing a public disservice.

People Arrested In Portland May Have Gotten A Compromised SIM Card

Phone privacy has real-world implications. Reportedly, the Feds may have hacked protestors and rioters phones with Sim Card Swaps and other nasty trickery. What other systems are compromised?...

Cloudflare Has A Better Privacy Alternative To Google Analytics

In a big shot to the bow of Google, Cloudflare is launching a privacy-friendly rival to Google Analytics, which is the current standard used in many, many companies. The cybersecurity, Distributed Denial Of Service (DDOS) attack p...

Cloudflare has an interesting new alternative to the extremely widely used Google Analytics. Will another web data analytics service ever overtake Google's market-leading service?

Barnes & Noble Cyberattack And Data Breach

Barnes & Noble customers join a growing list of hacking victims, while identity thieves rejoice as more peronsal data becomes available in the dark web marketplace. Legendary bookseller Barnes & Noble is having a tough week on the cybersecurity front. After a week of customers having major netw...

$Barnes \& Noble customers got their data leaked.$

Get Your Number Off MyLife For Good

Guide To Delete Your Phone Number From MyLife.com for free from RemoveMyPhone.com. Learn how to delete your phone number from one of the most notorious data-brokers online....

How To Remove Your Phone Information From MyLife.

How To Remove My Phone Number From Spam Robocalls

Increase your safety and peace of mind by eliminating annoying unwanted phone messages with this helpful guide. Avoid robocalls, spam calls, tax fraud, and more life problems....

PeopleFinders Phone Number And Data Removal

How To Delete Your PeopleFinders Profile with RemoveMyPhone's free data safety guide. Learn the tips and tricks to remove your private data so you can stay safe and get back to living your life....

What Do Data Brokers Know About You?

The amount of secret personal information that data brokers know about you is staggering. When your friends are aware of this, they might take their own personal privacy more seriously: so let them know....

People Search Engines can find out anything about you.

Can Your Employer Legally Watch You At Home?

How is the Covid-19 Pandemic impacting worker privacy? Can digital workplace privacy during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Is there a balance between managing workers and protecting rights or not? In our new digital work from home era during the Covid experience, how much privacy do we really have at work? Is yo...

Employers are monitoring you, aren't they?

How To Delete Your Nuwber Phone Number

Opt-Out Of Nuwber with this set of instructions. This free RemoveMyPhoneGuide will help you easily stay safer and more in control of your own data....

Is Private Coronavirus Contact Tracing Information Being Sold?

Look into your favorite stores' business and privacy policies. What data are they collecting if they ask for contact-tracing information, or demanding to see a vaccine ID card?...

PeekYou Data Removal Guide

How To Remove Your Phone Number From PeekYou with RemoveMyPhone's free digital data removal suggestions. We help you stay safe....

Make your personal information disappear from PeekYou.

Guide To Get Off ZabaSearch People Search Engine

How to delete your ZabaSearch Listings. Here's a helpful free guide from RemoveMyPhone that tells you how to delete your profile from this notorious data broker....

Delete Your Phone Number From ZabaSearch Guide.

How To Find and Remove Your Phone Number From USSearch

Opting out of US Search people search results with this free guide from RemoveMyPhone will keep you safer and improve your privacy. Stay safe out there....

Guide to delete your USSearch.com listing.

Google Is Giving All Search Records To Police Without An Individual Warrant

Geofence search warrants could errode US Constitution. Blanket warrants on certain types of data may be erroding the Constitutional protections that Americans are supposed to enjoy....

Warrantless search and seizure is now legal?

How To Delete Your InstantCheckmate Listing

Permanently removing your profile and account on InstantCheckmate can be beneficial for your privacy, and this free guide from RemoveMyPhone helps you do just that....

Removing your InstantCheckmate search results.

How To Get Your Phone Number Off Of BeenVerified

Delete your email off of BeenVerified.com to stay safer on social media with this free guide from RemoveMyPhone. Staying safe has never been easier....

Radaris Opt-Out Instructions

Delete your phone number from Radaris with the free removal guide from RemoveMyPhone that teaches you how-to delete your private information....

10 Best Tips To Prevent Identity Theft

There are many risks associated with your personal data getting exposed to th world at large. But one of the most concerning ones involves the fraud known as Identity Theft. Identity theft is an increasingly popular crime with criminals trying to use various tricks, hacks, data leaks, social engineering,...

Avoid Identity Theft With these 10 best practices and tips from information security experts and professional data analysts. It's important to take measures to protect yourself as identity thieves can steal critical personally identifiable information.

Facebook Bans Developer That Helped People Use It Less

As proof that no good deed goes unpunished, developer Louis Barclay of the very interesting Nudge Browswer Extension that attempts to keep you on track with your personal goals and avoid online wastes of time got his Facebook and Instagram accounts banned and a nasty cease and desist letter for his brows...

Facebook goes after a developer that built a tool designed to help people use it less. It turns out that simply unfollowing people on Facebook got more than a little crazy.

Hackers Rejoice! Big Facebook Data For Sale

Unscrupulous dark web data scrapers are having a lot of their products for sale these days. In this case, their products are probably you and your identity. They're selling sensitive personal data on 1.5 billion Facebook users: including full names, email addresses, phone numbers, location data, sex and ...

Facebook user data is for sale on the dark web (again). Do you know that your personal information is out there for scumbag creeps to profit off of?

Intelius Removal Guide

Learn how to remove your Intelius Listing to achieve greater privacy with this free guide from RemoveMyPhone that teaches you how to get your data off....

Panic From Twitch As All Time Massive Source Code And Financial Leak Blows Up

Proving that no social media giant site is safe from hackers and leaks, disaster unfolds for Twitch as one of the all-time major data leaks takes place, maybe even more substantially impactful than Facebook's recent monster data l...

Twitch's source code and financials are now out there in the public.

How To Delete Yourself From Spokeo

Removing Your Profile From Spokeo Has Never Been Easier with this free guide from RemoveMyPhone that shows you exactly how to accomplish just that....

How To Remove Your Whitepages Profile

Deleting your Whitepages profile for good can keep you safer. Learn how to delete your phone number from there with RemoveMyPhone's free how-to removal guide....

Zoom Privacy Backlash

The unknown privacy concerns Zoom faced in driving unprecedented growth are revealed. Zoom is an amazing tool, but it also has giant privacy concerns for the remote worker who is depending on that tool for their livelihood....

Be cautious about Zoom and working from home when it comes to privacy.

Amazon Wants Drones Watching Your Home, Not Just Speakers Listening In

When you saw this news, you might have thought it was an Onion article or taken from a plot of a dystopian Black Mirror episode. Apparently, Amazon isn't content for you to have a fixed speaker or two inside your house with the ab...

Amazon's Drones might not just be delivering packages in the future. The future of privacy might entail flying drones or mobile security devices in your home monitoring you and gathering massive troves of data.

Vital Privacy Settings Slack Forgot

Make sure you check your privacy defaults to keep private information safe from rival coworkers. With Today's Technology driven remote offices, these tips can be the difference between keeping your job or not....

What Is The World Coming To When You Can't Even Trust Your Grindr Account

Unfortunately, not even Grindr is safe. Grindr's gaping big security hole was mercilessly violated. Check your privacy settings and stay safe from data breaches....

How To Prevent Doxxing On Twitter

What is doxing? How can you stay safe? What's the best way to improve your privacy? With RemoveMyPhone's articles, you can learn more and keep tabs on the technology industry....

Make sure to avoid Twitter Mobs via doxxing.

Is Bitcoin Private And Anonymous?

Bitcoin's real-world level of privacy and safety for financial transactions examined. Are you always safe and secure when using Bitcoin? The answer isn't always clear....

TikTok Privacy Concerns

Is TikTok actually safe? Can any technology from China be truly trusted by American citizens? It's an entertaining site with some important privacy implications....

Is TikTok an espionage vehicle for the Chinese Communist Party?

3-2-1: The Best Backup Strategy For The Home

While you can be as safe as possible and follow best privacy practices and avoid clicking on bad emails and so forth to avoid being hacked or getting viruses, the reality is that one tiny mistake or vulnerability can crush you anytime. And your system can always burn out anytime. Data is one of the most ...

Despite the best efforts at a defense, anybody can get one tiny thing wrong and be hacked. A data recovery and backup plan is necessary for your continued information safety.

Prevent Your Phone Number From Being Stolen In SIM Swap Fraud

One of the smallest components in your phone can harm you. Find out about SIM card and phone network security here. Your bank account is literally at stake. ...

Crazy Fraud Risks From Phone Number Loss.

The Dangers Of Buying A Used Phone

Did you find a great deal on a used cellphone off of Craigslist or some other shop? Well goody for you, but there's some major safety concerns you have to keep in mind....

Make Your Facebook Private On Mobile

Setup your Facebook privacy settings right to ensure that your enemies can't find your private information and use it against you....

Online Dating Privacy Tips

Online dating is already tough enough without privacy and security risks. Make sure you're as safe as possible and reduce your risk from catfishing and other vile problems....

Tips To Prevent Cyberbullying

Before technology, cyberbullies bullied kids in real life. How can we reduce the problem of cyberbullies in a technically connected world?...

How To Make Your Facebook Private On Desktop

In current_year, it's essential to secure Your Privacy Settings On Facebook and stay safe from prying eyes and identity thieves....

Secure Your Facebook Account On Desktop.

What is a Kensington Security Slot?

Doing work in a coffee shop or airport or busy office? K-Slots can keep you safer by securing your vital equipment. Don't let a thief grab your hard drive....

Your Google Home Speaker Could Be Recording You

Your Alexa or other smart device can be a fun toy, but your smart speakers could also be spying on or be recording you. How can you simultaneously stay safe and connected in today's world?...

Your Google Devices could be listening in.

How To Turn Off GPS On Your Phone

Turn off location services on your phone for greater privacy from bad acting apps in a crazy and turbulent world environment....

What Is Multi-Factor-Authentication?

You do have MFA set up on your bank account at least, right? MFA's Staggeringly Important Role in Web 2.0 Safety and Privacy. Get this one right or you'll eventually be a victim....

How To Delete A Phone Number On Contacts

Removing a Phone Number From Your Contacts can be much easier than permanently deleting them from your life. Here's a quick guide on how to delete an old contact from your Apple Device to eliminate somebody's phone number....

Privacy Features In Safari 14

Exciting New Privacy and Security Functionality in Apple's Safari 14 helps protect people from being tracked, and offers other good security features to keep people safer....

How to Keep Your Mailing Address Safe

Don't let vandals, thieves, robbers, and other criminals find your home. Anybody with a grudge against you can cause damage and harm. Restore your peace of mind....

How To Protect Your Email From Hacks

Here are some email safety tips you should follow to stay as safe as possible. Your email opens up your bank account, crypto, business information, and private correspondence with friends, so it's super important to your life....

How To Talk To Your Kids About Online Safety

There's many child predators and sickos out there. Talking to your kid about online safety might save their life....

Teach your kids the wisdom to stay safe.

Top 10 Online Privacy Tips

Some of the best privacy advice that you won't see anywhere else directly from elite computer experts. Stay safe out there with the essential tips....

Things You Should Strongly Consider For Safety.

Top 5 Amazon Privacy Settings You Must Check

Mismanaged privacy settings are a huge source of issues, and unfortunately, most people don't understand or check these critical Amazon Privacy Settings. We'll show you how to stay safe on Amazon with these helpful tips and tricks....

Protecting Customers' Personally Identifying Information

How businesses can protect their customer databases and why this really matters. Make sure your business doesn't get destroyed overnight with a significant privacy breach....

The State of COVID-19 Personal Data Protection

Thoughts on the current COVID-19 Contact Tracting Technology Landscape and how it might impact personal privacy going forward....

Privileged Access Management Protects Personally Identifying Data

The principle of least privilege can protect personal data. Find out about this principle and take it to your workplace to ensure that your valuable business and customer data is safe from prying eyes....

Facebook Hates What Apple Is Doing To Protect Users

Apple's current mobile operating system iOS 14 could be having a big impact on publishers who work with Facebook's ad network. The company published a couple of blog posts recently outlining the potential impact of a major privacy change that Apple announced at WWDC: the fact that Apple will explicitly a...