Glossary · Privacy
Data broker
A data broker is a business that collects personal information about people from public records, purchases and online activity, compiles it into profiles and sells or licenses it, usually without a direct relationship with the people concerned. People-search sites are the consumer-facing kind. They are regulated by opt-out and registration laws in several US states and by data-protection law elsewhere, and they are the usual source of the name, address and relatives shown beside a photo.
Updated November 6, 2026 · 2 min read
What do data brokers hold?
Names, current and past addresses, phone numbers, relatives, property and court records, employment, vehicle data, purchase histories and inferred interests, gathered from government records, marketing lists, loyalty programmes, apps and web tracking. Some hold photos scraped from public profiles. The profile exists whether or not the person has ever heard of the company. The Federal Trade Commission's 2014 report counted nine brokers holding data on nearly every US consumer.
How do people-search sites relate to face search?
| People-search site | Face search engine | |
|---|---|---|
| Query | Name, phone, email, address, sometimes a photo | A face |
| Source | Broker databases plus public records | Faces on public web pages |
| Output | A profile: identity, contacts, relatives | Pages where a similar face appears |
| Example | Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, Social Catfish | PimEyes, FaceCheck.ID, FaceSearch |
| Opt-out | Per site, often repeated as data is re-acquired | Per engine, usually by face photo |
How are they regulated?
- United States: Vermont and California require brokers to register; California's Delete Act (2023) is building a single deletion request that all registered brokers must honour from 2026; the CCPA gives opt-out and deletion rights; the FCRA applies when data is used for credit, employment or housing decisions.
- European Union and United Kingdom: brokers are controllers under the GDPR and need a lawful basis, which several enforcement actions have found lacking.
- India: the DPDP Act requires consent or a listed use for processing; publicly available data has a partial exemption that brokers rely on.
How do you get out?
Each broker has its own opt-out form, and many re-acquire the data later, so removal is a repeated task; paid removal services automate the repetition. Removing yourself from brokers does not remove photos from the web or from face search engines, which need separate requests listed in the opt-out routes directory. The two problems meet when a face search result leads to a people-search profile that puts a name and address next to the photo.
Questions
Is a face search engine a data broker?
Not in the usual sense: it indexes public pages rather than compiling profiles for sale, and it returns pages rather than identities. Regulators have treated the face index itself as a separate problem under biometric data law.
Can I make brokers delete my data?
In California, the EU, the UK and India you have deletion rights; elsewhere, opt-out forms. Expect to repeat the process and to find your data re-listed within months.
Sources
- 1.FTC, Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability (2014) (checked November 6, 2026)
- 2.California Privacy Protection Agency, Data Broker Registry and the Delete Act (checked November 6, 2026)
Entry reviewed November 6, 2026. Found an error? Tell us.
Related entries
- Term Opt-out Opt-out defined for face search engines: a request to one engine to remove your face from its results, what it requires, what it does, and what it does not do.
- Term Consent (data protection) Consent in data-protection law: what makes it valid, when it must be explicit, why a public photo is not consent, and why face search engines rarely have it.
- Law California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA, as amended by the CPRA) California CCPA/CPRA: biometric data as sensitive personal information, the rights to know, delete and limit, CPPA and Attorney General enforcement, and face search.
- Law Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and face search How the US Fair Credit Reporting Act applies to face search: why engines disclaim consumer-report use, what a permissible purpose is, and employer duties.
- Directory Opt-out routes for every face search engine Opt-out routes for 20 face and image search engines side by side: form or email, verification asked for, stated timeline, cost and link. Checked Nov 6, 2026.
- Engine Social Catfish Social Catfish: a US people-search service with a face-matching reverse image search, trial-then-subscription pricing, name and phone lookups, and the Scamfish blog.
Cite this entry
FaceSearch Wiki editors. "Data broker". FaceSearch Wiki, updated November 6, 2026. https://facesearch.wiki/glossary/data-broker/