How to Protect Your Privacy From Obituary Data Mining

An obituary is meant to honor a life. But for identity thieves and scammers, it is a treasure chest of personal information served up in a single, publicly accessible document. Obituaries routinely contain full names, birth dates, home addresses, workplaces, and the names of surviving family members. For criminals who know how to exploit that data, one death notice can fuel months of fraud targeting both the deceased and those they left behind.

Why Obituaries Are a Gold Mine for Criminals

Obituaries are among the most accessible data sources scammers use after a death. Unlike medical or financial records, death notices are designed to be public. They are posted on funeral home websites, shared on social media, indexed by search engines, and archived indefinitely. Every detail included in an obituary is a data point a criminal can use.

From a typical obituary, a bad actor can harvest:

• Full legal name and maiden name (including the mother's maiden name, one of the most common security questions)
• Date of birth and date of death
• Home address or neighborhood
• Employer and occupation
• Names of surviving family members and their relationships
• Church, club, or organizational affiliations

With just a few of these details, criminals can purchase a deceased person's Social Security number and other sensitive records on the dark web. From there, the possibilities for fraud multiply rapidly.

What Is "Ghosting" Identity Theft?

"Ghosting" is the term for identity theft targeting deceased individuals. Unlike living victims, the dead cannot monitor their credit, dispute fraudulent charges, or report suspicious activity. This makes deceased identities especially attractive to criminals, who may exploit them for months or years before anyone notices.

According to AARP, nearly 2.5 million deceased Americans become victims of identity theft each year. Criminals use stolen identities of the deceased to:

• Open new credit cards and bank accounts
• Take out personal loans and lines of credit
• Obtain healthcare services using the deceased person's insurance
• File phony tax returns and collect fraudulent refunds
• Apply for government benefits
• Rent apartments or establish utility accounts

Bereavement Scams: Targeting the Living

Obituary data mining does not only threaten the deceased. Surviving family members are frequent targets of bereavement scams built on information harvested from death notices. Common schemes include:

• Fake debt collectors contacting family members to claim the deceased owed money and demanding immediate payment
• Phishing emails or calls impersonating banks, insurers, or government agencies, using specific details from the obituary to appear legitimate
• Burglary during funeral services by criminals who use the published funeral date and the home address from the obituary to target an empty house
• Fraudulent GoFundMe or donation pages set up by strangers claiming to raise money for the family

The more specific details an obituary includes, the more convincing these scams become. A caller who knows the deceased's workplace, the names of their children, and the church where the funeral was held sounds credible even when they are not.

How to Write a Safer Obituary

You do not have to choose between honoring someone's memory and protecting your family's privacy. A few deliberate omissions can dramatically reduce the risk of fraud without diminishing the tribute.

Details to Limit or Omit

• Date of birth: Use the year of birth only, or omit it entirely. A full birth date is one of the most valuable pieces of information for identity thieves.
• Mother's maiden name: Never include it. It remains one of the most widely used security verification questions.
• Home address: Use a general location ("of Springfield, Illinois") rather than a specific street address.
• Names of very young family members: Consider listing children by first name only or omitting minors altogether.
• Funeral date and time with home address: If you include the service schedule, avoid also publishing the home address in the same notice, since this combination tells criminals exactly when the home will be empty.

What You Can Safely Include

A meaningful obituary can still feature the person's accomplishments, personality, hobbies, career highlights, and the impact they had on their community. None of these elements give criminals the structured data they need to commit fraud. Focus on the story of the person's life rather than the administrative facts of their identity.

Steps to Protect a Deceased Person's Identity

Beyond writing a careful obituary, there are concrete actions you should take as soon as possible after a death to prevent identity theft.

1. Notify the Three Major Credit Bureaus

Contact Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to report the death and request a deceased alert on the person's credit file. This flags the account so that new credit applications are blocked or heavily scrutinized. You will typically need a copy of the death certificate and proof that you are authorized to act on behalf of the estate.

2. File IRS Form 14039

Submit an Identity Theft Affidavit (Form 14039) to the IRS to prevent criminals from filing a fraudulent tax return in the deceased person's name. Tax refund fraud is one of the most common forms of deceased identity theft, and it often occurs in the first filing season after the death.

3. Notify the Social Security Administration

Report the death to the SSA so the Social Security number is recorded as belonging to a deceased individual. Funeral homes often handle this step, but confirm it has been completed.

4. Close or Secure Financial Accounts

Work with banks, credit card companies, and investment firms to close or convert the deceased person's accounts. Leaving accounts open and unmonitored creates opportunities for unauthorized access.

5. Monitor for Posthumous Data Broker Listings

Data brokers do not automatically remove a person's profile after death. The deceased person's name, address, phone number, and other details may remain on people-search sites for years, where they continue to be accessible to anyone willing to look. PrivacyOn can help remove a deceased loved one's information from 100+ data broker and people-search sites, reducing the pool of data available to identity thieves and scammers.

6. Set Up Mail Forwarding and Monitor Correspondence

Forward the deceased person's mail to a trusted family member so you can catch any suspicious activity, such as credit card offers, collection notices, or account statements that may indicate fraud in progress.

Long-Term Vigilance Matters

Ghosting fraud often does not surface immediately. Criminals may sit on a stolen identity for months or even years before using it, waiting until the initial period of scrutiny has passed. Families should continue monitoring the deceased person's credit reports and financial accounts for at least a year after death, and ideally longer.

The combination of a carefully written obituary, prompt credit and tax notifications, and ongoing data broker removal creates a strong defense. No single step eliminates the risk entirely, but together they make it significantly harder for criminals to profit from a death notice.

If you are managing the estate of a loved one and want help removing their personal information from data broker sites, PrivacyOn monitors over 100 brokers continuously and submits removal requests automatically, giving you one less thing to worry about during an already difficult time.