How do people find your home address?

Mostly through public records and the sites that repackage them. Property records, voter registration files, court filings and professional licenses often contain a home address, and people search sites combine these with marketing data into a single listing. Beyond that, addresses leak through business filings, campaign or company websites, photos, delivery data exposed in breaches and small details on club or school pages. Usually it is not one source but several pieces that line up.

How do I remove my address from the internet?

You cannot remove it everywhere, but you can make it much harder to find. Start with the people search sites that show your listing and use each site's opt-out, either yourself for free or through a paid service. If you live in California, the state DROP platform sends one deletion request to hundreds of registered data brokers. Then check where you published the address yourself, such as a website, a business filing or an old profile, and change what you can. Recheck regularly, because listings come back.

Is it legal for people search sites to show my address?

In most of the United States, yes. These sites largely republish information drawn from public records, and that is generally lawful. Some states have added registration duties for data brokers, and a few protect specific groups. New Jersey's Daniel's Law, for example, bars disclosing the home addresses of judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officers once they ask. Using the data to stalk or harass someone is illegal regardless of where it came from.

What is an Address Confidentiality Program?

A state program for survivors of domestic violence, stalking and similar crimes. Participants receive a substitute address, often a post office box run by the state, which they can use with government agencies instead of their real one. The program forwards their mail. Many states run one, usually through the Secretary of State or the Attorney General. The details, who qualifies and which records are covered, differ from state to state.

Does opting out of people search sites actually work?

For a while, yes. The FTC notes that opting out removes your listing from that particular site, but it does not delete anything from the public records underneath. Your details may reappear when those records are updated, and they can still show up in the listings of relatives or neighbors. Opt-outs are maintenance, not a one-time fix, so plan to check again every few months.

How Someone Can Find Your Home Address, and How to Hide It

In the early hours of June 14, 2025, a man drove to the homes of two Minnesota lawmakers. State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot dead in their house. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were shot in theirs and survived. The man charged with the attacks, Vance Boelter, had notebooks with him. According to an FBI affidavit quoted by WIRED, they listed more than 45 state and federal officials, Hortman among them with her home address written next to her name. One notebook named 11 mainstream people search platforms used for finding home addresses.

The case is not as tidy as the headline version. As WIRED also reported, citing The New York Times, Hortman’s address appeared on her campaign website and Hoffman’s on the state legislature’s site. The data brokers were one route, not necessarily the decisive one. The acting US Attorney put it more broadly: he used the internet and other tools to find their addresses.

That is the honest shape of the problem. Every month, thousands of people type how to find someone’s address into a search engine. Most of them want to send a wedding invitation or find a lost relative. The same few routes work for anyone. This article looks at them from the other side: where your home address sits in public, which of those places you can close, and what US law does and does not do about it. We will not explain how to locate someone else.

Where your home address comes from

A row of old brass letter slots in a dark stone wall, each with an empty name frame, one in the middle covered by a plain metal plate and lit warmly from the side — Once someone has your name, the mailbox usually is not far behind. Unless it has been covered.

Very little of what a stranger can find about where you live was leaked or stolen. Most of it was filed.

The FTC lists the usual raw material behind people search sites: property records, voter registration information, court and vital records, professional licenses. Buy a house, register to vote, file for divorce, get a license for your trade: each of these can leave your address in a record that is open to the public, and people search sites draw on exactly those records.

None of this was designed with stalking in mind. Property records exist so that ownership can be proven, court files so that justice happens in the open. Still, the people who want to misuse them have noticed. According to Politico, one line in the Minnesota notebooks read simply that most property records in America are public.

Then there is everything you published yourself. A small business website that shows a home office address. A campaign page, as in Hortman’s case. A club or school newsletter, an old résumé, a listing on a professional directory.

And there are the leaks. Every online order leaves a shipping address in some company’s database, and when that company is breached, names, addresses and phone numbers end up in data sets that circulate. Whether your email shows up in a known breach is something you can check, which we cover in how to check if your data was breached.

Photos are the quiet route. A picture taken at home can carry GPS coordinates in its metadata, and even a stripped image can show a street sign or a distinctive view. What files reveal is covered in our piece on metadata.

Where your address appears	Who can see it	What you can do
people search sites	anyone, often for a small fee	opt out site by site, or use a service
property records	public in most counties	limited; some states shield certain groups
voter registration	varies by state	ask about confidentiality options in your state
business filings and websites	public	use a business address you actually staff
data breaches	whoever holds the leaked files	check exposure, watch for targeted scams
photos you post	your audience and beyond	strip location data, check backgrounds

People search sites and what an opt-out really does

Scattered dark jigsaw pieces with no picture on a wooden table at night, a few in the middle already fitted into a small patch that catches warm light — One piece says little. Put enough of them together and a street appears.

People search sites are where those scattered records meet. The FTC describes how it works in its consumer advice. With nothing more than a name or a phone number, someone can buy a report that includes your current and previous addresses and the names and addresses of your family members.

The same FTC page explains the main defense. Most sites let you opt out, and you can either do it on your own, one by one, for free, or pay a service to do it for you. The one-by-one part is the catch. There are many of these sites, and they buy from each other.

The FTC is also candid about the limits. Opting out of a site does not delete your information from public records. When those records are updated, your details can reappear. And your name and address can still turn up in the report of a relative or a neighbor, because their listing includes the people around them. A writer at Lawfare compared the process to whack-a-mole, which is a fair description from anyone who has tried it. The same article quoted Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon after the Minnesota attacks: Congress doesn’t need any more proof that selling data to anyone with a credit card is deadly.

So is opting out worth it? Yes, with realistic expectations. It does remove the easiest, cheapest path, the one someone takes when they type your name and a city and pay a few dollars. It does not make you unfindable to someone determined. Treat it as maintenance and check again every few months.

Our guide to searching yourself online goes through the full self-check, from search operators to directory listings, and is part of our OSINT series, which starts with what OSINT is.

Daniel’s Law: when a state took addresses offline

In July 2020, a man posing as a delivery person came to the New Jersey home of federal judge Esther Salas. He shot and killed her 20-year-old son Daniel Anderl and seriously wounded her husband. The attacker had once appeared before her in court. According to the legal publication Lawfare, he had built a dossier of information available online to hunt the judge.

New Jersey responded within months. Daniel’s Law was approved on November 20, 2020. Its core sentence is short: a person, business or association shall not disclose on the internet the home address or unpublished home telephone number of active, formerly active or retired judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officers. Their family members are covered as well. Anyone who violates it can be sued for actual damages, with a floor of $1,000 per violation, plus punitive damages for willful violations and attorney’s fees.

For police officers, the protection only kicked in 18 months after the law took effect. In December 2022, Congress passed a federal counterpart for federal judges, the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act. Salas has kept talking about the risk since. In a 2024 interview with Judicature, a journal published at Duke, she talked about the later threat against Justice Brett Kavanaugh. It was, in her words, posed by someone getting his information off the internet.

Both laws protect specific professions. If you are not a judge, prosecutor or police officer, they do not help you directly. They do show something worth knowing: once lawmakers decided that a home address on the internet is a safety risk, they found ways to take it down.

California’s one-stop deletion

A single sealed envelope of thick cream paper with a plain wax seal on a dark wooden desk, an old brass lamp beside it casting warm light onto it — One request instead of hundreds. That is the whole idea of DROP.

California went further for everyone who lives there. The Delete Act of 2023 created a state platform called DROP, short for Delete Request and Opt-out Platform. It launched in January 2026, and data brokers began processing requests in August 2026.

According to the California Privacy Protection Agency, one request reaches over 600 registered data brokers. It is free. The brokers have to check the platform regularly and delete what they hold about the people who signed up.

There are two limits. DROP is only for California residents. And it covers registered data brokers, the companies that buy and sell information about people they have no direct relationship with. It does not touch county property records, court files or what you posted yourself.

California is one of four states with a data broker registry, together with Oregon, Texas and Vermont. If you live elsewhere, the site-by-site route is still the main one.

Address Confidentiality Programs

A tall closed wrought-iron garden gate at night, a gravel path behind it leading to a house in the mist with a warm lamp beside its door — A substitute address does not hide the house. It closes the gate most people come through.

For people who are in real danger, many states run a different kind of protection. Address Confidentiality Programs give survivors of domestic violence, stalking and similar crimes a substitute address they can use instead of their real one.

California’s version, Safe at Home, is run by the Secretary of State. According to the program, it offers a substitute mailing address for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking and some other crimes. Mail goes to the state first and is forwarded to the participant, which adds a delay of a few days. Participants can ask that their residential address on public records be replaced by the program address.

The details vary widely. Who qualifies, which records are covered and how you enroll differ from state to state. Advocates usually help with the application, and the program works best as part of a wider safety plan, as California itself says. A list compiled by the National Organization for Victim Advocacy is a good starting point to see what your state offers.

A note on Europe

If you live in Europe, the picture is different. People search sites in the American style are rarer, and the GDPR gives you an enforceable right to have data about you erased. Germany has its own wrinkle. Its residents’ registration offices will hand out a current address to almost anyone who can identify the person, and protection comes through a formal block on that information. That is a separate system with separate rules, and this article sticks to the US.

What to do, in a sensible order

A plain, unengraved brass plaque beside a dark wooden door on an old stone facade, lit warmly by a single wall lamp — Some addresses we put on the door ourselves, on a website or a business filing.

How far you go depends on your situation.

If nobody is threatening you and you just want to be harder to find, start with a search for your own name and city. Note which people search sites show a listing, then opt out of the biggest ones. Look at what you published yourself: a business website, a nonprofit page, an old profile. If your home doubles as your office, think about a separate business address. If you are in California, file one DROP request.

If someone is threatening you, the order changes. Document the threats and report them. Then talk to a local victim advocate about your state’s Address Confidentiality Program. Ask early, before you update records or move. After that come the opt-outs, again and again.

Either way, put a reminder in your calendar. Listings regenerate.

What sticks

A home address in the United States is less a secret than a byproduct. Buying, voting, working and shopping all create records, and a whole industry exists to collect them under your name. That is why typing a name and a city into the right website so often produces a street.

You cannot undo that system on your own. You can thin it out. Opt-outs take the cheapest path away, state programs like DROP and Address Confidentiality Programs cover more ground where they exist, and some of the exposure is simply stuff you posted and can take down.

The Minnesota case shows both halves. The notebooks named people search sites, and two of the addresses were also sitting on official pages. Closing one door helps. Knowing how many doors there are helps more.

Frequently asked questions

How do people find your home address?: Mostly through public records and the sites that repackage them. Property records, voter registration files, court filings and professional licenses often contain a home address, and people search sites combine these with marketing data into a single listing. Beyond that, addresses leak through business filings, campaign or company websites, photos, delivery data exposed in breaches and small details on club or school pages. Usually it is not one source but several pieces that line up.
How do I remove my address from the internet?: You cannot remove it everywhere, but you can make it much harder to find. Start with the people search sites that show your listing and use each site's opt-out, either yourself for free or through a paid service. If you live in California, the state DROP platform sends one deletion request to hundreds of registered data brokers. Then check where you published the address yourself, such as a website, a business filing or an old profile, and change what you can. Recheck regularly, because listings come back.
Is it legal for people search sites to show my address?: In most of the United States, yes. These sites largely republish information drawn from public records, and that is generally lawful. Some states have added registration duties for data brokers, and a few protect specific groups. New Jersey's Daniel's Law, for example, bars disclosing the home addresses of judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officers once they ask. Using the data to stalk or harass someone is illegal regardless of where it came from.
What is an Address Confidentiality Program?: A state program for survivors of domestic violence, stalking and similar crimes. Participants receive a substitute address, often a post office box run by the state, which they can use with government agencies instead of their real one. The program forwards their mail. Many states run one, usually through the Secretary of State or the Attorney General. The details, who qualifies and which records are covered, differ from state to state.
Does opting out of people search sites actually work?: For a while, yes. The FTC notes that opting out removes your listing from that particular site, but it does not delete anything from the public records underneath. Your details may reappear when those records are updated, and they can still show up in the listings of relatives or neighbors. Opt-outs are maintenance, not a one-time fix, so plan to check again every few months.