# Remove Your Date of Birth From the Internet How to remove your date of birth from the internet: where it is published, who controls each source, which routes work, and what cannot be hidden. --- You can remove a date of birth from the internet only one source at a time, because no single request reaches every place it is published. The work is changing who can see it on your own accounts, asking listing sites to drop it, using the redaction routes that some public registers offer, and accepting that a few official records keep it by design. A date of birth is a different kind of data from an address or a phone number. You can move house and change a number, but you cannot change the day you were born, and banks, lenders and agencies treat it as one of the details that identify you. That is why a date of birth that sits in public view for years keeps its value to anyone trying to impersonate you, and why the goal is two things at once: fewer places that show it, and no reliance on it as a secret. This guide stays on the date of birth as a data type: where it appears, who owns each copy, and an order of work with realistic timing. Opt-out mechanics are the same as for any other listing, so we cover only what is different for a birth date.
The short version
Only youthe Google Account setting that keeps a birthday from others
Year onlywhat federal court filings in the US may show of a birth date
£34Companies House fee per document to remove the birth day

Sources: Google Account Help, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2, and GOV.UK guidance on Companies House, each read for this guide. The rule and the fee apply to their own systems only.

## Where a date of birth is published, and who owns each copy A date of birth appears in five kinds of places, and the owner of each decides how it can be changed. A request sent to the wrong party does nothing, so identify the owner first. **Your own profiles and accounts.** Social networks, email providers, shopping accounts and forums ask for a birth date at sign-up. Some show it, some show only the day and month, and some use it silently for age checks. You own these settings. **Other people's posts.** Birthday greetings, a photo with a dated cake, a team roster with ages. You do not control these, and they are the leak most people forget. **Search results.** A search engine does not hold your date of birth. It indexes pages that do, and removing a result hides one address in the engine, not the page. **People-search sites and data brokers.** Many listings show an age, a birth year or a full date assembled from other records. Most have an opt-out route, and the detail shown varies by site. **Public records.** Voter rolls, company registers, court filings and licensing records. Public authorities set the rules, and they differ by country, state and record type. The table puts the five side by side so you can decide where to spend the first week.
Where it appearsWho decidesRouteTypical speed
Your own profileYou and the platformPrivacy setting, or edit the fieldMinutes
A friend's postThe poster, then the platformAsk them to edit or delete; platform tools only for rule breaksDays, if they agree
A search resultThe search engine, then the siteRemoval request for the page; site owner for the sourceDays to weeks
A people-search listingThe listing companyOpt-out form, or a data protection request where the law gives oneDays to weeks, then rechecks
A public recordThe authority that keeps itRedaction, restriction or a court order, where the rules allow itWeeks, sometimes not possible
## Your own profiles: set the birth date to private first The fastest result is on accounts you control, so start there: set the birth date to private, or remove the year, on every account that offers the choice. Do this before you ask anyone else for anything, because a profile you leave public can be copied back into a listing site after you have it removed. The settings differ by platform and change often, so read the platform's own help page before relying on a menu path from memory. One example that was read for this guide is [Google Account Help](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/27442). It says Google does not share your birthday automatically, and that you can choose between "Only you" and "Anyone". It also says that once you have added a birthday, you cannot delete it, though you can edit it and change who sees it. That pattern is common: the date can usually be hidden, but not always removed. Work through accounts in this order: email and cloud accounts, because they anchor everything else; social networks and messaging apps; professional, forum and gaming profiles; then old accounts you no longer use, since a dormant profile with a public birthday is still indexed. ### Hide the year, not only the day Where a platform lets you show a day and month without a year, choose that, because a full date needs all three parts. Where it offers only all or nothing, choose nothing. ### Giving a false date Services that verify age or identity, such as banks, government portals and some marketplaces, need the true date, and a mismatch can lock an account or break a later check. Platform terms often ask for accurate information. We do not suggest entering a false date anywhere you may later need to prove who you are. ## Other people's posts: the leak you do not control A birthday greeting on a public post can repeat your date every year, and a search engine can index it as easily as a profile. The fix is a request, not a setting. Ask the poster to remove the date or change the post's audience, and if you run a family or team page, set a house rule that greetings go in private messages. A friendly birthday post is rarely a platform rule break, so the platform's reporting tool is usually not an option. Two quieter leaks let someone work out a date without seeing it. An age plus a greeting ("turning 40 today") on a known day fixes the full date. Graduation years and rosters with ages narrow the year, and a greeting then gives the day. ## Search results: why a removal request rarely fits a date of birth Search engines remove pages, not facts, and the main engine's removal policy does not list a date of birth as an eligible type. On [Google's page on removing private information](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730), read for this guide, the types that can be reported include addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, government ID numbers, bank and card numbers, images of a signature or ID, private records such as medical records, and confidential credentials. A date of birth is not among them. Two further limits apply. The same page says removal covers only the submitted URLs and only the search results, and that the content may stay online. To remove it from the site itself, you must contact the site's owner. And the policy treats doxxing separately: removal is available for personal information shared with threats or calls to harass, or for a significant amount of aggregated personal information with no legitimate purpose. If a date of birth appears beside your address and phone number on such a page, the request is stronger because of the aggregate, not because of the birth date. So the working order is source first, search second. Have the site remove or restrict the page, then ask the search engine to refresh or drop the lingering result. We did not read the current forms of Bing or other engines for this guide, so check each one before filing. ## People-search and broker listings: what changes when the data is a birth date A listing that shows a full birth date is the highest priority among broker records, because it sits beside your name, age and relatives. The mechanics are the same as for any field: find the listing, find the removal form, submit, confirm, recheck. What changes is the order and the follow-up. - **Fix full-date listings first.** A page showing only an age band is lower risk than one showing day, month and year. - **Check what remains after an opt-out.** Some sites remove the whole record, others only hide it from their own search. Open the profile again after a week. - **Expect copies.** Listings are often rebuilt from the same upstream records, so a removed profile can reappear. Recheck monthly for the first quarter. - **Use the law where it gives you a route.** In the UK, ICO guidance says you can ask an organization to delete personal data in several situations, that the right is not absolute, and that the organization usually has one calendar month to respond. The page was marked under review when read, so check it before you cite it. Other countries and US states differ. An opt-out removes a listing, not the underlying record. If the birth date comes from a voter roll or a court file, the site may be allowed to republish it, and the decision sits with the authority that holds the record. ## Public records: voter rolls, company registers and court filings Public records are the hardest category, because the authority sets the rule and the rule changes with the place and the record type. The three examples below each belong to their own jurisdiction and are not the rule everywhere. ### US voter rolls Voter registration forms collect a date of birth, and what happens to it depends on the state. The US Election Assistance Commission publishes a [chart on voter roll privacy](https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/2024-03/Voter_Roll_Privacy.pdf), and the entries differ widely: in some states the date of birth, or part of it, is confidential; in others it is among the data released to requesters; and in some it depends on who is asking and why. One entry says the full date is only provided to certain voter list requesters. The chart is a snapshot, so read your own state's election office page for the current rule before you act. ### UK company registers On the Companies House register in the UK, a director's date of birth is shown to the public as month and year only, according to Companies House blog posts of 2015 and 2021 read for this guide. The 2021 post says this applies to directors appointed on or after 10 October 2015, and that Companies House has a legal duty to publish the month and year, so it cannot be opted out of. The 2015 post says the full date is still held by the registry and is available to public authorities and credit reference agencies, that older filing images were not redacted, and that copies already held by third-party sites may still show more. The [GOV.UK guidance](https://gov.uk/stop-companies-house-from-publishing-your-address) says you can apply to remove the day of the month from documents filed before 10 October 2015, using form SR01 and a fee of £34 per document as of the page read. The fee is per document, so a long filing history costs more. This is a record that can be reduced but not fully removed, and another country's register will work differently. ### Court filings In US federal courts, [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_5.2) says a filing may include only the year of an individual's birth. The rule has exemptions, including official records of state-court proceedings, and the court may order further redaction for good cause. State and local courts have their own rules, so a birth date in a state file may be fully visible and the federal rule does not apply to it. The rule's notes put the duty to redact on the filer, not the clerk, so if you find a full date in a federal filing, the route is a request through the lawyer who filed it or a motion to the court, which needs legal advice. ## Why a date of birth matters more than it looks A birth date matters because it works as an identifier and cannot be rotated, so the harm from exposure lasts. A leaked password is changed in minutes. A leaked date of birth stays leaked, and a fraudster who holds it only needs the other pieces: a name, an address, sometimes a partial number. The consumer agencies are consistent on the response. USAGov advises against sharing personal information such as a bank account number, Social Security number or date of birth, and its identity theft steps point to IdentityTheft.gov and to credit reporting agencies for fraud alerts and a credit freeze. The Federal Trade Commission describes a credit freeze as blocking new credit accounts in your name, free to place and lift, lasting until you lift it, and requested from each of the three bureaus. These are US sources, and other countries have their own credit-file protections, so a reader outside the US should look for the local equivalent. So change the question. Do not ask whether your date of birth is secret, because for most adults it no longer is. Ask what someone could do with it, and close those doors: - Never use the birth date, or anything derived from it, as a password, PIN or security answer. - Use app-based or hardware authentication on email and financial accounts rather than SMS or knowledge questions. - Place a credit freeze if your country offers one and you do not need new credit soon. - Treat any message that quotes your date of birth to sound legitimate with suspicion. Quoting it proves nothing. ## What cannot be hidden Some copies of a date of birth are permanent, and knowing that early saves wasted effort. - **Official records you must provide.** Tax, licensing and professional registers keep the date by design. Access may be limited, but the record stays. - **Archived copies.** Web archives and cached pages may hold a past version after the live page changes. - **Copies already sold or shared.** Once a broker has passed data downstream, you must chase each recipient, and some cannot be reached. - **Information others have lawfully published.** A date of birth inside an accurate article is rarely removable on its own. - **Your age.** Hiding the birth date does not hide that you are around forty. Graduation years, early career dates and photos give it away. ## A 30-day order of work You work from the sources you control to the ones you do not, and you recheck at the end. The timing fits one person with a handful of exposures; a public figure with many listings needs longer, and the times are typical, never promised.
Removing a date of birth in 30 days
  1. Days 1 to 2: search for the date in its common formsSearch your name with the full date, with the month and year, and with the age. Use a private window and note each URL and the owner of the page.
  2. Days 2 to 4: lock your own accountsSet the birth date to private or hide the year on every account that allows it, starting with email, then social, then old accounts. Close accounts you no longer use.
  3. Days 3 to 7: ask the postersMessage the people whose public posts carry the date and ask them to edit or change the audience. Keep the message short and polite.
  4. Days 5 to 14: submit listing opt-outsFile the removal form for each people-search or broker listing, starting with those that show the whole date. Keep the confirmation emails.
  5. Days 7 to 21: contact record holdersFor voter, company or court records, read the authority's own rules and use any redaction or restriction route it offers. Take legal advice before a court motion.
  6. Days 14 to 28: report the leftovers to the search engineWhen a page is gone but still appears, use the engine's tool for outdated results. Where the page is live and the policy allows it, file the matching removal request.
  7. Any time in the first week: harden what you cannot hideChange any password or security answer that uses the date, switch on strong authentication, and consider a credit freeze if your country offers one.
  8. Day 30, then each quarter: recheckRepeat the searches. Reappearing listings are normal, and a short log makes the second pass fast.
Treat day 30 as the first checkpoint, not the finish: listing sites usually respond within days to a few weeks, and public record routes can take longer or be refused. ## The next step if the date is already being used
If this is happening to you now

If your date of birth appears next to your address, phone number or family names, or a fraud attempt has already quoted it, the case is bigger than one listing. We map every copy, the owner of each and the order of requests in a private audit. Start with the audit.

## Questions people ask ### What if a site says my date of birth is public record? That is often true of the original record, and it limits what the site must do. Ask the site which record it used, then go to the authority that holds it and use that body's own redaction or restriction route. If no route exists, aim for the listing site to drop its copy, and make the date useless as a secret. ### Does hiding my birthday on social media hide my age? No. Hiding the field removes the date from the profile, but age can still be worked out from graduation years, career dates, photos and friends' posts. A "turning 40 today" post fixes a full date even when the profile is private. Hide the field, then ask friends to avoid posting the date, and expect age to remain inferable. ### How long does it take to remove a date of birth? It varies by owner. Account settings change in minutes, and a friend's post depends on whether they agree. Listing sites usually respond within days to a few weeks, and public record requests can take weeks or be refused. Plan a first checkpoint at 30 days and a recheck each quarter, because listings often return. ### Can a company register or court file be changed? Sometimes, and only by the rules of that authority. In the UK, Companies House shows directors' month and year and offers a paid route to remove the day on older filings. US federal filings should show only the birth year. State courts and other countries differ, so read the authority's own guidance and take legal advice for court steps. ### Is a credit freeze enough if my date of birth is public? It is a strong protection against new credit being opened in your name, and the FTC describes it as free and lasting until you lift it. It does not cover every kind of misuse, such as takeover of existing accounts. Combine it with strong authentication, and keep the birth date out of passwords and security answers. ### Do I need a lawyer to remove my date of birth? Not for account settings, post requests or listing opt-outs. You may need one for a court filing, a contested record, or a request that a site refuses where the law gives you a right. This is information, not legal advice. Reputation Partners can map the exposure and the owners, and your counsel decides the legal steps.