My personal information was posted online!

LegacyUser

I am in the process of applying for work placements for college and so today I googled my name to see if there was anything on the internet that a potential employer would not like to see.

To my surprise, my full address was one of the top results.. I looked at the website and it turned out to be a government-affiliated site that thought it was appropriate to put my name and address in a pdf and stick it up for the whole world to see. Now, I'm not a criminal or anything like that, but I don't want to say what it's in relation to because I'm terrified of somebody just showing up on my doorstep... But it's something along the lines of 'this person was treated at the Mater Hospital' along with my details, nothing bad, nothing good, literally as mundane as that. Moreso, the address bears absolutely no relation to the pdf's contents. I have never given anybody permission to disclose any of my personal details online or otherwise and I am just horrified at the thought that somebody can get my address with a google search. My name's not too common either, which doesn't help..

Has this happened to anyone before? How do I deal with the situation? Can personal details such as dates of birth/phone numbers/addresses be made public by organisations just like that?

Or I'd love to know your thoughts/opinions on the situation. I have always been extremely careful with the things that are posted online about me and this has just rendered me speechless...

freshpopcorn

To be honest without you saying what it is it's hard to give advice. I've often heard of people signing stuff without reading the fine print and they didn't relies what they signed.
I'd essential try and contact the Admins of whatever website it is and ask them to polite relive your details from the site.

vertmann

It's to do with a medical issue? That surely can't be right, putting confidential information like that online. For starters I'd be contacting the Data Protection Commissioner for advice. Perhaps then make contact with the website, assuming they've left contact details.

gaiscioch

I'd say if you contact the people directly they would remove it, but ask them why they did it. However, as I too would not like my info posted online without my permission I would then lodge a complaint with the Data Commissioner - if you unwittingly gave consent, the DC could rule in your favour - just to make sure they think twice before they do it to somebody else.

LegacyUser

vertmann wrote: »

It's to do with a medical issue? That surely can't be right, putting confidential information like that online. For starters I'd be contacting the Data Protection Commissioner for advice. Perhaps then make contact with the website, assuming they've left contact details.

No, it's not a medical issue, that was just an example. It was actually to do with an event I attended over a year ago. The page is quite recent, hence why I was so surprised to see it.. And I most definitely did not sign anything, or even explicitly provided any details in a form of any kind or anything like that. The government agency in question got in contact with me, I showed up and that was the end of that.

I've sent an email to a contact address they've provided on the website, we'll see if anything will come out of it. I'll get in contact with the Data Commissioner as well. Thank you for your responses.

hoodwinked

best bet is to contact the website itself, the data protection commissioners can literally do nothing, less than a year ago myself and a friend contacted them over something similar on a public services website so i rang them for her and i was told to fax them details as they didn't have an e-mail address i could send the screen shot's to???

i asked what if i sent them to the info one on the website and she told me no faxing them is best?!?

in the end we contacted the public service in question and were told they couldn't remove the details but that they would redact the important ones.

LegacyUser

So I got a response from them today.. Along the lines of 'If you have a problem with search results, contact Google directly'. My questions as to why this information was posted about me were ignored.

I've already contacted Google to omit this particular search result, but that's not the point. I can't possibly spend my life going around contacting search engines and web crawlers. Especially since it doesn't stop people from finding my address, just hides it better. Besides it's not just me, there's a few people on that particular page, including children. I mean, it literally says they're underage beside their names, with full addresses.

Maybe I'm overly paranoid, but I just don't believe that every single one of those people, including the kids' parents gave concent, I know I didn't. Feeling very frustrated.

nikkibikki

Can you ring them OP? I think I would. It's not acceptable IMO at all. Ask for proof of where you gave permission for such personal details to be published in the public domain.

I'm off to google my kids names now....

LegacyUser

As far as I can see they don't provide a phone number, only email and an address..

Apparently Google is reluctant to remove any information without it having been removed from the actual website first.. And the person I've been emailing with regards to this has some serious case of selective hearing/reading.

Is there anywhere else I can go?? There has to be some privacy breach in this..

Roselm

not_telling wrote: »

So I got a response from them today.. Along the lines of 'If you have a problem with search results, contact Google directly'. My questions as to why this information was posted about me were ignored.

I've already contacted Google to omit this particular search result, but that's not the point. I can't possibly spend my life going around contacting search engines and web crawlers. Especially since it doesn't stop people from finding my address, just hides it better. Besides it's not just me, there's a few people on that particular page, including children. I mean, it literally says they're underage beside their names, with full addresses.

Maybe I'm overly paranoid, but I just don't believe that every single one of those people, including the kids' parents gave concent, I know I didn't. Feeling very frustrated.

This isn't Googles fault!Someone had to have uploaded it to the internet for a Google search to find it.
Don't accept their response and I would take this further.Keep a screen shot of the page including date as once it disappears you couldn't prove it was ever there if you did need to...