Privacy For Cops

[SDBROKER]

I'm currently helping a fellow officer out of a bad situation after all his private info was leaked shortly following a viral video of his contact with an African American suspect.

My properties are in a trust, but the trust includes my name, so it is still easy to find. My trust attorney wants to dissolve it and create a new one for $2K. I feel like there must be a better way.

Has anyone used privacyforcops.org? Thoughts? Know of someone better?

Thanks,

[RCxRC]

I use LEOwebprotect. It is run by an LAPD officer (probably retired by now), for $100/year.

CA is one of only a few states that has a law on the books prohibiting the release of LEO personal address / contact information without proper legal process (confidentiality law). Of course, your LA Times subscription desk will likely give out this info when its own reporters are trying to track you down for a story, and the USPS is notoriously lax about needing "legal process" to release your PO Box registration info (including your home address listed thereon). A subpoena duces tecum written by someone filing a small claims court case is about all that is really needed for this info to be released by USPS.

LEO Webprotect does periodic internet searches for search terms related to your name, your family member names, addresses and phone numbers. I'd guess at least twice a year. Pretty sure this is automated.

When they find any website listing information about you, they have email contact info for most internet personal info brokers that they will forward a form letter to, listing the relevant CA legal references, and advising the website to take the info down or face further "legal repercussions". I believe the relevant CA legal sections list a violation as a misdemeanor, with a penalty range of at least $4k or 3x actual "losses". It isn't that significant for a larger entity or one out of state to really care.

None the less, I have found the service effective in shutting off at least 95+% of the info that I have found on myself over the past half-dozen years I've used the service. Occasionally (couple times a year) I will Google search myself by name and will often find at least one or two new "people search" type websites listing my address (or my former address), and an email to LEOwebprotect will get it stopped within a week or so.

None the less, paywall websites like US Search, Intellius, Been Verified, Spokeo, etc, all have current address info available for as little as $3 up to $10 just for an address, and trying to stop these sites is a constant battle. For each one that is shut down, another two pop up. Your info is always circulating, and almost everything you sign-up for and use involves giving away all of your privacy rights to "partner services / businesses" or whomever else your service providers decide to sell your info to (rent, mortgage, car loan/service, credit card companies, cell phone, internet, newspaper, credit reporting agencies, etc, etc...). Trying to read and respond to all of these companies "privacy policies" and "opting out" is near impossible. Every sweepstakes entry, store you provided your contact info to, is selling it. Businesses & sales people can buy reams of "sales leads" by the thousands for cents per lead that lists names, addresses, estimated value of property owned, income levels, age, religious affiliation, political affiliation, if you're married, have children, what cars you own, credit card balances, employment info, if you have a gym membership, group affiliations (NRA, CRPA, etc), etc, etc.

Privacy for Cops, LEOwebprotect, and others like them are an affordable first step to stop broad, free, open-source posting of your home address & phone information from being readily available with a 30 second search by just anyone, but to really "disappear" from paywall sites and the like is nearly impossible. A physical property record search in your county at the recorder's office would easily turn up your home address.

Unless you go back to square one and put EVERYTHING you own into a no-name living trust or other trust / LLC, etc (cell phone service, insurance, PO Boxes, newspaper / delivery services, vehicle registrations, home / property), you really can't be protected from someone who is truly intent on finding you or your family. Sorry to say....

$2k to "start all over" and put everything into a living trust seems like a reasonable cost to protect your family these days, as much of a hassle as it is. But even that is not a guarantee your info won't "pop up" on a paywall personal info site from time to time....

[nobody33]

Check with Scott Omara in San Diego on trust prices. He works with a lot of cops.

[Just-in]

Good info here. My agency subscribed to deleteme and I appreciate it but I see that it’s only a first step. Definitely looking into a living trust.