How to Opt Out of People Data Labs

To opt out of People Data Labs, open the Privacy Center at privacy.peopledatalabs.com, choose "Delete all my data," select "Consumer" as your relationship, submit your name and email, then click the confirmation link emailed to you within 72 hours. Deletion completes in about 14 days.

What Is People Data Labs?

People Data Labs (PDL) is one of the largest business-to-business data brokers in the world, maintaining a database of billions of individual profiles assembled from public records, social media, web scraping, and licensing deals with other data providers. Unlike consumer people-search sites such as Whitepages or Spokeo, PDL does not run a public lookup page. It sells your profile through an API to recruiters, sales teams, marketers, and data-enrichment platforms.

That distinction matters, because it means you will never find yourself on People Data Labs by Googling your own name. Your record is still there — it is just being sold behind the scenes. The information PDL holds typically includes:

• Contact information — personal and work email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses
• Employment history — current and past employers, job titles, seniority, and tenure
• Education records — schools attended, degrees, and graduation years
• Social profiles — links to LinkedIn, GitHub, X, and other public accounts
• Location and demographics — city, region, country, and inferred industry data

Your Legal Right to Deletion

People Data Labs operates web forms for opt-out, deletion, correction, and data portability, and makes them available globally rather than only to residents of states with privacy laws. If you live in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas, Oregon, or another state with a comprehensive privacy law — or in the EU or UK under GDPR — you have an enforceable right to deletion, and PDL must honor it within the statutory window. Everyone else can still use the same form; PDL processes those requests too.

Step 1: Open the People Data Labs Privacy Center

Go to privacy.peopledatalabs.com. You can also reach it from the main site: visit peopledatalabs.com, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click "Make a Privacy Request" in the footer. Both routes land on the same request portal.

Step 2: Choose the Right Request Type

The Privacy Center offers several options. The two that matter most are:

• "Delete all my data" — a full deletion of your record. This is the option to choose if you want out entirely.
• "Do not sell my personal information" — excludes your record from sale but does not delete it. Choose this only if you specifically want your data retained but not sold.

For a complete opt-out, select Delete all my data.

Step 3: Identify Your Relationship to PDL

You will be asked to state your relationship to the company. The choices are Consumer, Current or former employee or contractor, Authorized Agent, and Applicant. Unless one of the others genuinely applies to you, select Consumer.

Step 4: Submit Only the Details Needed to Find You

Enter your full name and the email addresses associated with your record. If you have multiple email addresses — a personal one and a work one — submit them, because PDL frequently holds separate records keyed to each. Add your phone number and employer only if the form asks. Do not volunteer extra personal information beyond what is required to locate your profile; you are trying to shrink your footprint, not expand it.

Step 5: Confirm the Request Within 72 Hours

PDL will email you a verification link. The link expires within 72 hours, and unverified requests are dropped without notice. Check your spam and promotions folders — these confirmation emails are routinely filtered. Click the link to finalize the request.

Step 6: Wait for Deletion and Keep the Confirmation

People Data Labs states it will delete your personal data within 14 days of a verified request. Save the confirmation email and note the date you submitted. If the deadline passes and your data is still being sold, that record is the evidence you need to escalate to your state attorney general or, in the EU and UK, your data protection authority.

What to Do About Re-Collection

This is the part most opt-out guides gloss over. Deleting your record does not stop PDL from rebuilding it. The company continuously scrapes public sources and licenses data from other providers, so if your details are still publicly available — on a company team page, a conference speaker bio, LinkedIn, or another broker that has not removed you — your profile can reappear within months.

Two things reduce the odds:

• Ask for suppression, not just deletion. In your request, explicitly ask PDL to suppress your identifiers from future collection rather than only deleting the current record. Suppression keeps a hashed marker so your profile is not silently rebuilt.
• Remove the upstream sources. As long as consumer people-search sites and other B2B aggregators publish your details, PDL has somewhere to re-collect them from.

Realistically, a manual PDL opt-out needs repeating every few months to stay effective.

Beyond People Data Labs

People Data Labs is one node in a large network. Other major B2B aggregators holding similar profiles include ZoomInfo, Clearbit, Apollo.io, Lusha, and Seamless.ai — each with its own separate opt-out process, its own verification email, and its own re-collection cycle. On the consumer side, hundreds of people-search sites publish your home address, phone number, and relatives.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I remove myself from People Data Labs?

Go to privacy.peopledatalabs.com, select "Delete all my data," choose "Consumer" as your relationship, submit your name and email addresses, then click the verification link PDL emails you. The link expires in 72 hours, and deletion is completed within about 14 days.

How long does a People Data Labs deletion take?

People Data Labs states it deletes verified requests within 14 days. The clock only starts once you click the emailed confirmation link, so an unverified request will sit indefinitely and then expire.

Is People Data Labs legal?

Yes. Collecting and selling publicly available business and contact data is legal in the United States, and PDL operates as a lawful data-as-a-service provider. What the law does require is that it honor deletion and opt-out requests from consumers, which is exactly what the Privacy Center form is for.

Will my data come back after I opt out?

It can. PDL continuously scrapes public sources and licenses data from other providers, so your profile may be rebuilt within months if your details remain publicly available elsewhere. Requesting suppression rather than deletion alone helps, and removing yourself from upstream brokers reduces the sources PDL can rebuild from.

Why can't I find myself on People Data Labs?

PDL has no public search page — it sells profiles through an API to businesses rather than displaying them on a website. You will not find your listing by searching, but the record still exists. Submit a deletion request even if you cannot see a profile.

Do I need to opt out of other B2B data brokers too?

Yes. ZoomInfo, Clearbit, Apollo.io, Lusha, and Seamless.ai maintain overlapping databases, and removing yourself from one does not affect the others. Each requires a separate request. PrivacyOn handles B2B brokers alongside consumer people-search sites so you are not managing dozens of individual opt-outs.