Is it legal to look someone up?

This is general information, not legal advice. Laws differ between countries and states, so check the rules where you are, or ask a lawyer, before you rely on anything here.

Is it legal to look someone up? In most countries, reading what a person or a website has made public is lawful. What the law cares about is what you do with it next.

Reading public pages is generally lawful

Company websites, news articles, conference speaker pages and public profiles were published to be seen. Reading them is usually not an offence on its own, even if the person would rather you hadn't looked.

Private information is different. Getting into accounts, messages or records you are not allowed to see, for example by guessing a password or pretending to be someone else, is against the law in most places.

What you do with it is what matters

Three areas come up most often.

Decisions about people: the FCRA and people search

In the United States, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) covers reports used to decide on someone's employment, credit, insurance or housing. A company that puts those reports together for others is a consumer reporting agency, and it has to follow the FCRA's rules on accuracy, access and disputes.

Employers have duties too. The FTC's guide Background checks: what employers need to know explains that before an employer gets a background report from a consumer reporting agency, it must tell the applicant in writing, in a document that holds only that notice, and get their written permission. If the employer may turn someone down because of the report, it has to give them a copy first, so they can check it and explain.

This is where the FCRA and people search sites meet. A people search site that isn't a consumer reporting agency is the wrong tool for these decisions, and using one that way can put you on the wrong side of the law. Deep Search is not a consumer reporting agency, so don't use it to decide on anyone's job, loan, lease or insurance.

Harassment and stalking

Using what you find to contact, follow, watch or intimidate someone who doesn't want contact can be a crime, whatever the source of the information. Stalking and harassment are offences in the US, the UK and many other countries, online as well as in person.

Publishing someone's personal details to shame or target them, often called doxxing, can also break the law in some places. If someone has cut contact or blocked you, that is a reason to stop, not to dig further.

Data protection: GDPR and UK GDPR

In the EU and the UK, the GDPR and the UK GDPR set rules for anyone who collects and keeps personal data about others. Looking someone up for purely personal reasons usually falls outside those rules. Doing it for work is different: a business that keeps what it finds about people generally needs a lawful reason (a lawful basis), should keep only what it needs, and may have to tell the people concerned.

People also have rights over data held about them, including, in some cases, the right to have it deleted. The UK regulator, the ICO, explains how that works for organisations in its guide to the right to erasure.

Are people search sites legal?

People search sites gather information that is already public and show it in one place. In many countries that is allowed, as long as the site follows local privacy and consumer protection law. Their exact duties depend on where they operate, what they collect and how their results are used.

In the US, the FTC has brought cases against people search companies that marketed their reports for employment screening without following the FCRA.

So, are people search sites legal? Generally, yes. Whether your reason for using one is legal is the other half of the question.

People search vs background check

Both collect information about a person, so they can look alike, but they are built for different jobs and follow different rules. Here is how they compare in the United States.

So the people search vs background check question comes down to purpose. A people search helps you prepare. A background check is the regulated route for decisions about someone's job, home, credit or insurance.

Looking up a job applicant or a tenant

Reading what an applicant has chosen to make public, like a portfolio, a talk or a company bio, is common and generally lawful. A people search report is the wrong basis for the decision, though. In the US, if you want a background report to inform a hiring decision, get it from a consumer reporting agency, with the applicant's written permission and the notices the law requires if the answer is no.

Even a quick look at public profiles carries risk. You may see things you are not allowed to weigh, such as age, religion, pregnancy or a health condition, and anti-discrimination laws still apply. In the UK and the EU, data protection law also expects checks to be proportionate to the role, and candidates to be told about them.

For tenants, the rules are similar. A US landlord who screens applicants with a report should get a tenant screening report from a consumer reporting agency, and generally has to tell an applicant when a report led to a refusal.

A simple fairness test

Is it legal to look someone up for your particular reason? The sections above cover the law. Where the law leaves room, one more question helps: would the person think your reason was fair if they knew you had looked?

• Usually passes: checking that a new business contact works where they say, preparing for an interview you have been invited to, or confirming a source's role before you quote them.
• Usually fails: digging into an ex's new life, tracking down someone who has cut contact, or hunting for a private address.

If the answer makes you uneasy, stop. A lawful search can still be an unfair one.

How Deep Search stays on the right side of the line

Deep Search is built for research into people's public, professional lives, with limits to match.

• It only reads public web pages, and every fact in a report links to the page it came from.
• Email addresses, phone numbers and messaging links are removed from every result.
• We don't publish pages about anyone, and there are no public share links. Reports are built when someone searches, and saved reports stay in the searcher's own browser.
• Our permitted use rules forbid using reports to decide on jobs, loans, housing or insurance, and forbid harassment and building databases of people.

You can read more about what we are, and what we are not, on our about page.

If you find yourself in results

If Deep Search shows something about you that you would rather it didn't, you can ask us to remove your name. It costs nothing and you don't need an account. We review each request and reply by email.

The pages themselves belong to the sites that published them, so to take a page down, contact that site. If you are in the UK, the ICO explains your right to get your data deleted and how to ask an organisation to do it.

Related guides

• How to find someone online, the right way: handling common names and confirming you have the right person.
• How to verify someone's identity before you meet: simple checks before a business meeting or a pitch.