What a data broker actually knows about you

By MercPrivacy · Published 2026-07-28 · Updated 2026-08-02

Not one tidy record — many, from different sources on different refresh cycles, topped with modeled guesses that are often wrong.

## Many profiles, not one

The most common misconception about data brokers is that each holds a single record on you that can be deleted once. In reality a broker typically holds several overlapping profiles, assembled from different suppliers on different refresh schedules.

This is why a listing you removed last year can reappear this year from a source you never interacted with — and why any service promising a permanent one-time cleanup is describing something that does not exist.

## Where the data comes from

- **Public records** — property deeds, court filings, voter registration, professional licences, business registrations - **Commercial sources** — warranty registrations, loyalty programmes, subscription sign-ups - **Address resellers** — change-of-address data, utility connections - **App and web telemetry** — location data and identifiers sold through advertising networks - **Breach corpora** — personal details from breaches, traded openly

## The categories on a typical profile

- Full legal name, maiden name, nicknames and aliases - Current address and prior addresses, sometimes going back decades - Mobile and landline numbers, current and long-dead email addresses - Relatives, roommates, neighbours and inferred household graphs - Employer, job title and professional licences - **Modeled** financial signals — estimated income band, property value, owner-or-renter status

## Why the modeled fields matter most

The factual fields make you findable. The modeled fields make you *targetable*.

An estimated income band and a homeowner flag are what turn a phone number into a qualified lead for a solar pitch, an insurance quote or a lending offer. They are inferences drawn from statistics about people who look like you on paper, and they are wrong often enough that people are regularly targeted for products that make no sense for their circumstances.

You cannot correct them, because they are not claims about you — they are guesses. What you can do is get the underlying record suppressed so the guess has nothing to attach to.