Information like your address and phone number is public record—meaning people can find out stuff about you pretty easily, and legally, from public documents. However, most websites that make it easy to search this information require you to pay for it, presenting a significant barrier to entry for most people. But there’s a website that’s offering public record information for free: FamilyTree Now. All you have to do is type in a person’s name, and a profile of possible aliases, relatives, age, birth month and past and present addresses appear.
According to The Washington Post, a warning from Enough is Enough, a popular Facebook group about law enforcement officer safety, warned families of police officers that the website could potentially be used to target them. The website does not specifically state whether an individual is a police officer or not.
The Post tried to reach Dustin Weirich, who lists himself as the founder of the website on his LinkedIn profile and is the only manager listed in California public records for FamilyTreeNow LLC, to find out why this website was created. Weirich, however, did not respond to request for comment, and his LinkedIn and FamilyTreeNow profiles have since become inaccessible.
While this website is very concerning, the good news is that it appears that you can opt out of having your information displayed on the website. Go to this page on FamilyTreeNow to see the steps.
The website says that it will take approximately 48 hours for the information to be removed.