How does GhostVault stop spam calls?

Americans received 52.5 billion robocalls in 2025, according to the YouMail Robocall Index. Spam callers source phone numbers primarily from data broker sites that aggregate and sell personal information. GhostVault removes your phone number, home address, and personal details from 500+ data broker and people-search sites — cutting off the supply chain that feeds spam callers. Most users report a significant reduction in spam calls within 30–60 days of removal.

Can GhostVault prevent identity theft?

Yes. The FTC received 1.1 million identity theft reports in 2024, with total consumer fraud losses hitting $12.5 billion — a 25% increase over the prior year (FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024). Identity thieves routinely use data broker sites to obtain personal details — full name, address, phone number, relatives, and employment history — before committing fraud. GhostVault removes this data from 500+ broker sites and monitors for reappearance, materially reducing the personal information available to bad actors.

How long does it take to remove my information?

GhostVault's scan delivers results instantly — no waiting period. Automated CCPA deletion requests are sent to data brokers immediately upon subscription. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, brokers are legally required to process deletion requests within 45 days. In practice, most major brokers (Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified) remove listings within 7–14 days. GhostVault monitors your listings continuously and re-submits removal requests whenever your data reappears.

Which data broker sites does GhostVault remove me from?

GhostVault targets 500+ data broker and people-search sites — more than double the coverage of most competitors. This includes all major brokers: Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, TruePeopleSearch, Intelius, Radaris, PeopleFinders, MyLife, FastPeopleSearch, Nuwber, PeopleLooker, and hundreds of smaller aggregators and resellers. The global data broker market was valued at approximately $277–$303 billion in 2024, according to multiple industry research firms including Grand View Research and ResearchAndMarkets, making comprehensive removal coverage essential.

Is the scan really free?

Yes. GhostVault's exposure scan is completely free — no credit card, no account required. The scan checks your name against 500+ data broker databases and returns a detailed report showing exactly which sites have your phone number, home address, relatives, and other personal information. Paid removal starts at $3.99/month, making GhostVault the most affordable full-coverage data removal service available in 2026.

How much does GhostVault cost?

GhostVault costs $3.99/month on a monthly plan, or $39/year ($3.25/month) on the annual plan. This makes it the lowest-priced comprehensive data removal service in the market — cheaper than Incogni ($6.49/month annual), OneRep ($8.33/month annual), DeleteMe ($10.75/month annual), and PrivacyDuck ($8.25/month annual). All plans include unlimited removal requests, continuous monitoring, and breach alerts.

Do data brokers scrape social media profiles?

Yes. Data brokers routinely scrape publicly accessible social media profiles to enrich their databases with current photos, employer information, relationship status, and location data. Public Facebook profiles, LinkedIn accounts, and public Instagram accounts are common sources.

What privacy settings should I change on Facebook to protect my data?

On Facebook, set your profile to Friends Only, disable the 'Do you want search engines to link to your profile?' option, remove your phone number and address from your profile, turn off location history, and review which apps have access to your account. These changes prevent data brokers from scraping your current information.

Can making my social media private stop my information from appearing on data broker sites?

Making your social media profiles private stops future scraping but does not remove data already collected. You still need to opt out of data broker sites directly or use a service like GhostVault to remove existing profiles. Combining social media privacy settings with ongoing broker removal provides the best protection.

Social Media Privacy Guide 2026: Lock Down Your Profiles

Your social media profiles are a goldmine for data brokers. They scrape your bio, photos, location check-ins, tagged posts, and relationship data, then cross-reference it with public records to build more accurate profiles to sell. Here is how to lock down every major platform before that happens.

What Data Brokers Scrape From Social Media

Data brokers run automated scrapers that collect publicly available information from social platforms at scale. The specific data they target includes:

Name and username — used to link accounts across platforms
Profile photo — used for facial recognition cross-matching
Bio information — employer, city, school, links to other accounts
Contact information — phone or email if listed publicly
Location data — check-ins, tagged locations, geotagged photos reveal home, work, and routine
Relationship data — tagged family members help brokers build family graphs
Interests and affiliations — used for behavioral profiling and targeted marketing

The real damage comes from cross-referencing. A data broker might combine your Facebook bio (employer, city) with your LinkedIn profile (full work history) and county property records (home address) to build a profile far more detailed than any single source could provide. Social media confirms and updates data they already have from public records.

Facebook Privacy Lockdown

Facebook has the most granular privacy controls of any major platform, and the most defaults set to "public." Work through these settings in order:

Who can see your posts: Settings & Privacy > Privacy > Your activity > Who can see your future posts → Friends
Profile visibility: Settings > Privacy > Profile and tagging → Set hometown, workplace, education, and phone number to Friends or Only Me
Turn off Location Services: In the Facebook mobile app, go to App Settings and disable precise location
Disable Face Recognition: Settings > Face Recognition > Do you want Facebook to be able to recognize you in photos and videos? → No (if still available in your region)
Off-Facebook Activity: Settings > Your Facebook Information > Off-Facebook Activity → Clear history and turn off future tracking from third-party sites that share data with Facebook
Limit past post visibility: Settings > Privacy > Your activity > Limit the audience for old posts on your timeline → Limit Past Posts
Disable search engine linking: Settings > Privacy > How people can find and contact you > Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? → No
Revoke unused app access: Settings > Apps and Websites → Review all connected apps and remove anything you no longer use or don't recognize

Instagram Privacy Lockdown

Instagram defaults to a public account, which means your photos, captions, location tags, and bio are visible to anyone — including data broker scrapers.

Make your account private: Settings > Privacy > Account Privacy → toggle Private account on. Existing followers keep access; new followers must request approval.
Turn off Activity Status: Settings > Privacy > Activity Status → disable so others can't see when you're online
Disable Story sharing to Facebook: Settings > Account > Sharing to other apps → disconnect Facebook cross-posting
Review third-party app access: Settings > Security > Apps and Websites → revoke access to anything unused
Disable "Photos of You" auto-tagging: Settings > Privacy > Tags → turn off Allow tags from everyone; change to manually approve tags
Disable "Similar Account Suggestions": Settings > Account > Similar Account Suggestions → turn off so Instagram doesn't suggest you to others based on shared contacts

LinkedIn Privacy Settings

LinkedIn is frequently scraped because profiles are professional, detailed, and often public by default. These settings reduce your exposure without hurting your professional presence:

Control who sees your connections: Settings > Privacy > Who can see your connections → change to Only you or Connections. Exposing your full network helps scrapers map professional relationships.
Turn off "profile viewed" notifications: Settings > Privacy > Profile viewing options → change to Anonymous LinkedIn Member when browsing others' profiles
Disable data use for third-party advertising: Settings > Data Privacy > Data for LinkedIn ads → turn off all three options
Control discoverability: Settings > Visibility > Who can find you > Allow others to find you by email or phone number → turn off both
Control search engine indexing: Settings > Visibility > Edit your public profile → turn off "Your profile's public visibility" if you don't need to be found externally, or selectively disable sections

X (Twitter) Privacy Settings

X is one of the most heavily scraped platforms because its API was historically open and most accounts are public. These settings reduce your exposure:

Protect your posts: Settings > Privacy and Safety > Audience and tagging > Protect your posts → enable. Only approved followers can see your tweets.
Disable precise location: Settings > Privacy and Safety > Location information → turn off both location in posts and precise location
Turn off data sharing: Settings > Privacy and Safety > Ads Preferences → disable all personalization and data options including "Allow Twitter to share your data with business partners"
Disable discoverability: Settings > Privacy and Safety > Discoverability and contacts → turn off both "Let others find you by your email" and "Let others find you by your phone"
Remove phone number: Settings > Account > Phone → remove your phone number from your account entirely

TikTok Privacy Settings

TikTok collects an unusually broad range of device and behavioral data. Beyond video privacy, these settings reduce what the app itself collects and shares:

Make your account private: Settings > Privacy > Private account → enable. This limits who can see your videos and follow you.
Disable "Suggest your account to others": Settings > Privacy > Suggest your account to others → turn off all options
Turn off location sharing: At the device level, revoke TikTok's location access (iOS: Settings > TikTok > Location → Never; Android: Settings > Apps > TikTok > Permissions > Location → Deny)
Limit ad data use: Settings > Privacy > Ads > Ad personalization → turn off; Settings > Privacy > Ads > Off-TikTok activity → clear and disable
Disable contact and Facebook syncing: Settings > Privacy > Sync contacts and Facebook friends → turn off both

Google and YouTube

Google is not a social media platform in the traditional sense, but your Google account activity, searches, location, YouTube watch history, feeds into data broker enrichment pipelines through advertising data partners. Take these steps:

Review and delete past activity: Visit myactivity.google.com to see everything Google has logged. Use "Delete activity by" to clear historical data.
Pause Location History: Google Account > Data & Privacy > Location History → turn off and delete existing history
Pause Web & App Activity: Google Account > Data & Privacy > Web & App Activity → turn off. This stops Google from storing your searches.
Control discoverability: Google Account > Personal info > Choose what others see → review and restrict what's visible on your Google profile
Delete past searches: myactivity.google.com → filter by Search and delete in bulk. Reduces the behavioral profile Google can sell to advertisers.

The Bigger Picture: Social Media Isn't Enough

Locking down your social media profiles is a good first step, but it's only step one. Even if every one of your accounts is set to private today, data brokers already have extensive profiles built on data that social media settings can't touch:

Voter registration records — public in most states, contain your address, party affiliation, and sometimes date of birth
County property records — if you own a home, your name, address, and purchase price are public record
Court filings — civil suits, bankruptcies, divorces, and criminal records are generally public
Old social media data — scraped before you changed settings, and already sold to hundreds of downstream brokers
Marketing data — purchase history from loyalty cards, retail data sold to brokers

Changing your privacy settings stops new data from being collected. Removing yourself from data broker sites addresses the data that's already out there, the profiles that exist right now and are being sold today. For comprehensive removal across 500+ sites, see GhostVault's automated removal service.

See What Data Brokers Already Have on You

Run a free scan to see which data broker sites currently publish your name, address, phone number, and personal history — even after locking down your social media. GhostVault removes it from 500+ sites automatically, starting at $3.99/month.

What Is a Data Broker?

Learn how data brokers collect, combine, and sell your personal information.

How to Prevent Identity Theft

15 proven steps to protect your personal information from identity thieves.

Social Media Privacy Guide 2026: Lock Down Your Profiles Before Data Brokers Scrape Them