Address exposure
Most address leaks start with a property record, voter roll, or court filing. Data brokers scrape those sources, copy the address, and sell it.
What this is
Address exposure is the problem underneath doxxing, swatting, stalking, and family targeting. Your home address sits on broker pages because, somewhere upstream, it sits in a public record. Brokers scrape public records, commercial data feeds, and each other. Once your address is in that pipeline, it spreads.
The main sources, in rough order:
- Property records. County recorders publish deed transfers and tax data online.
- Voter rolls. The file is public to candidates, parties, and certain researchers in most states, and it flows downstream into commercial broker data.
- Court filings. Civil suits, divorce cases, and traffic cases often list a home address in the body.
- DMV records. The federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act, a 1994 law that limits what state DMVs can release, sets a floor. State rules add more on top.
- Commercial data sales. Utilities, credit files, and retailers sell, leak, or breach the data.
Why first responders catch this more
The job often comes with a state-level protection: an address-confidentiality election, and in some states a broker-removal statute like Daniel's Law in New Jersey. Those protections do not bind data brokers by default.
Cops, judges, and firefighters who filed the state election are often still exposed. A broker can hold an old address it scraped from a property record before the election was ever on file.
Your address is not only about you. The same broker page that lists your home lists the people who live in it, so cleaning up your exposure means cleaning up theirs.
What we sweep that prevents the chain
We file opt-outs across the major broker sites, then keep checking and re-file when your listing reappears. The state-level shields close the agency disclosure path going forward. We work the side those shields miss: the way brokers re-publish data the agency just sealed. What the state shield doesn't reach, continuous broker monitoring for individuals covers.
For specific exposure sources, see the sub-pages: property records, voter rolls, court appearance.