Google announced that it will remove search results which are indulging in doxxing or revealing personal information of a user. Results which include information such as physical addresses, phone numbers, login credentials etc, will be removed after a user puts in a request.
Google already allowed users to request the removal of search results that contained information which could be used in identity theft or financial fraud. This new policy expansion adds new kinds of information that could lead people to your physical location or allow them to access your online accounts. According to the Verge, the new update means that the full list of details you can request Google to remove is as follows:
- Confidential government identification numbers like Social Security numbers in the United States or Aadhaar numbers in India
- Bank account numbers
- Credit card numbers
- Images of your signature
- Confidential personal medical records
- Personal contact information including physical addresses, phone numbers and email addresses
- Images of identification documents
The last three items on the list are the additions that are part of the new policy expansion.
To make a removal request, you need to go to the relevant support page and submit the offending URL or URLs along with the search result pages where they appear. Once you submit, you get an automated email confirmation that lets you know that Google has received the request.
When Google receives a removal request, it will evaluate all content on the web page to make sure that it won’t limit the availability of other information that is broadly useful by removing the search results. For example, news articles. In such a case, the company won’t remove search results.
The search giant will also evaluate whether the content is part of public record on the sites of government or official sources. If that is the case, it won’t remove the content. Earlier this month, Meta had removed such an exception to its doxxing policy after a recommendation from its Oversight Board.
If the information is found to be offensive and doesn’t fall into the above two criteria, it will remove the content.
But if the company doesn’t have enough information to make this decision, it will try to gather more information and I some cases, it will ask the user for more information. In such a case, the company will share specific instructions about what information is missing and will share it with the user so that they can resubmit the request.
