I’m sorry, this topic is kinda USA centric. At least the details. Maybe not the core idea though. For the non-USA readers, KYC = know your customer.
I am soon to move to a new home for a job xfer. I wish I could do it privately. I had a stalker who broke into my home. I am still apprehensive and tense even though it was years ago. It feels impossible to move privately 😠
I know about Michael Bazzel’s Privacy books, and I have read over them. They are good and I follow his advize for some things. I still feel overwhelmed and don’t think I can manage it by myself. One problem is, the last edition of the Privacy book was years ago. KYC is in many more places now. Like utilities and services you need when moving to a new home. I run into more things that demand a copy of a gov photo ID or they will not give you a service. This data makes toward the credit bureaus, they always learn. It used to be you could pay for utilities from an LLC, but that often triggers a KYC check now and sometimes they want to copy your ID.
I already try to fight my addy appearing in people search sites but that is hard. There are so many of them. Some outside the USA and do not follow takedown requests.
There must be ways to do this! Maybe they are only available to the rich and famous? I am not rich or famous, lol. But I am middle class and would spend a moderate sum for a service to handle this. I do not feel I can do it on my own. Maybe I could years ago before so many attacks on privacy, but no more.
Has anyone successfully moved AND kept a new home addy private from data brokers? Did you use a service or company to help?
Difficulty level: Nearly impossible.
Even if you buy the house in a trust and have an attorney list his name for all utilities and have packages and mail delivered to a PO box, there’s a thousand other tracking vectors that will eventually tie your name to your home and most of them are completely out of your control.
You would need to have a car without a cellular modem, not use a cellphone, and most importantly never tell any friends or family your home address and never allow any friends and family inside your home.
My entire extended family knows how I am about my privacy and yet someone still thought it would be fun to sign me up for a planting magazine with my full legal name and new address.
Banks, utilities, even government and health agencies sell your personal data without your knowledge and to any single one of them your home address isn’t necessarily “protected or sensitive” information.
Friends and family will be so excited for you and optimistically update your address in there phone book. A month later they download some candy crush clone game and give it permission to access contacts. Boom you’re compromised.
Normally I hate blackpilled takes like this, but sadly this is the one aspect of privacy that at least in the US is essentially impossible.
Oh yes! I have experienced this already! They put it in their contacts and then every sketch weather app and recipe app scrapes it. My friends are kind and well meaning, but hey have no idea how the information economy works. They do not understand how much data they are giving away about themselves but abotu me too!
That is what Michel Bazzel talks about too in his book, but it seems like this is difficult to find someone to do that. And it makes other kinds of things difficult too, if the residence is not tied to your name. I have had cases where I had to supply a “utility bill” tying my real name to my residence, in order to get some other kind of service I needed, or part of KYC.
I fear you are right about the difficulty of this. I don’t think it is exactly impossible. But very difficult, for sure!
I have to second this. Even if none of that was true, they find you through the “you shaped hole” in the lives of the ppl around you. That’s the best you can hoped for IMO