Found my address on Ancestry

[IslaSkywalker]

My electoral roll information is supposed to be private and not available on the electoral roll. Yet I found my full name and address plus date of birth on Ancestry today.

How do they get these details? How can I get rid of it?

That’s really weird! Census data shouldn’t published for living people afaik. What piece of information was it included in?

Census and electoral roll.

When I filled the electoral roll form in I ticked the box to not have it included in public information.

The data governance people at the council might be a good place to start.

How did you come across it? Just searching your name?

What do you mean by census ? The most recent one you can see fully is 1921

No census after 1911 is available on ancestry, so let's stop saying that. What is being exposed here is the posters address on the electoral register.

I suppose they're argument would be that it is available to anyone who goes to their local town hall. However if you have asked for it to be kept secret then it won't be on ancestry for those years that you asked it to be secret however if you had some years where it was not secret then it will be found on ancestry.

It's not the census, that's private for 100 years. It'll be the electoral roll.

Are you sure that you are (still) removed?

if so, when did you sign up for removal? have been removed for over 20 years (first time I was offered the choice if I recall correctly) but I can still see me living in the same house I am in now, back in 2001-02. Frustrating.

Yes.

@Pettyhangingbaskets I know that about the census however this is not from the census, but the electoral roll. But the two categories are lumped together on Ancestry.

Yes and the 1921 census is only on FindMyPast.

Ancestry has voters lists up to 2010 online. If you have lived at your current address since 2010 or before then yes you might be on there. It does NOT give your date of birth, just an year range for your birth so like 1960-1962.

If you were not opted out of the public register at the time then they are doing nothing wrong by publishing. There is also no way of knowing whether someone who is listed at an address in 2010 or 2005 is still there. Many aren't.

Go on 192.com and type your name and town in the free search box.

If you spot yourself coming up it is probably because of Electoral Roll entries from when the privacy box has not been ticked.

192 populates a lot of its data from the Electoral Register (and of course other sources). It would like to charge you for more detailed search results, but this will tell you whether your appearing on Ancestry is probably via the Electoral Register.

[Edited one word]

Yes but 192.com is current data, what is on Ancestry is 15 years ago data.

Presumably you can contact them under GDPR and have your info removed.

After reading this, I checked and found my info there too. If I’ve understood correctly from their site, you can’t ask ancestry to remove your address unless there is an immediate threat to you (and you have to have this attested). They say that they are only providing info that is already in the public domain. However you can opt out of the open electoral register, which is the source of their info - see www.gov.uk/electoral-register/opt-out-of-the-open-register

I had no idea that existed.
Thank you (and yes I’m appearing too even though I’m pretty sure I ticked the famous box. I need to contact the council to update.

Now wondering who else is using that information….

Ancestry is the biggest genealogical site out there. Do you think they are unaware of GDPR?

There is also freely available information out there about your birth, anyone can order your birth certificate, your marriage, when your children were born and where etc etc. this is all public information.

You can’t ask them to retrospectively opt you out of the electoral roll if you didn’t ask to be opted out at the time.

No it's historical too. You can request it's removal from there though.

I requested 192 remove my info a while ago and they did so very swiftly.

Often someone will decide to opt out of being on the public Electoral Register without realising 192 has scooped up data for the past 20+ years.

I've opted out of the public information on electoral rolls every time I've completed the form from the council. I'm not and never have been on 192.com. So I still don't know why I'm on there. I've never appeared on the BT phone lists either.

To obtain a birth certificate for someone under the age of 50 you have a few hoops to jump through because of identity theft.

I'm a teacher so I don't want details out there.