Tools
Claude, CNIL and Google forms
Price
Free
Time
1 hour, then follow-ups
Level
Beginner

For a freelancer these listings are a real problem: your home address sits next to your business, and an unhappy customer or a cold caller finds you in two clicks. The process is simple but tedious (one site, one request, one follow-up): exactly the kind of repetitive work AI makes lighter.

Scope. This guide applies to people in the European Union and the wider European Economic Area, where the GDPR applies. Examples come from France, where the regulator is the CNIL; every EU country has its own data protection authority. Outside the EU, your rights depend on local law.

Your three levers

  • The right to erasure (GDPR Article 17). According to the CNIL, it applies in particular when your data is used for marketing, is no longer needed, is processed unlawfully, or when you have objected to the processing. The site must answer within one month at the latest (three months for a complex request, with an explanation).
  • Ex-directory ("liste rouge" in France). For a French landline, your details are listed in directories by default; going ex-directory is free and is requested from your operator. For a mobile, nothing is published unless you ask. If you switch operator, you must make the request again.
  • Google. The "Results about you" tool finds pages showing your address, phone number or email and lets you request their removal. The "right to be forgotten" form covers other content linked to your name in the EU. In both cases Google removes the search result, not the page itself.

Step by step

  1. Take stockSearch your name with your town, then your number, then your email. Write each page address down in a table. Prompt 1 prepares that tracking table.
  2. Turn on "Results about you"At myactivity.google.com/results-about-you, enter the contact details to monitor. Matching pages land in the "To review" tab, where you request removal.
  3. Write to each siteFind the contact in the legal notice or privacy policy (often a data protection officer, or "DPO"). Prompt 2 drafts the request.
  4. Go ex-directoryFrom your landline operator's customer area, or by calling customer service.
  5. Follow up, then complainKeep proof of every request. With no satisfactory answer after one month, you can file a complaint with your data protection authority (the CNIL in France). Prompt 3 writes the follow-up.

Prompts to copy

Keep brackets instead of your real details: you will fill them in yourself in the final text.

Prompt 1 · inventory
I want my personal contact details removed from websites that display them.
1. Give me 8 Google searches to find them, with brackets instead of my information ([NAME], [TOWN], [PHONE], [EMAIL]).
2. Prepare a tracking table with these columns: site, page address, data shown, contact found, date sent, reply deadline (one month after sending), follow-up, outcome.
Do not invent any site: I will fill in the table with what I find.
Prompt 2 · erasure request
Write a short, polite erasure request addressed to the controller of the website [SITE NAME].
Context: the page [PAGE ADDRESS] displays my personal data: [e.g. home address and landline number]. I never agreed to this publication and I object to this processing.
The request must:
- cite Article 17 of the GDPR (right to erasure);
- list exactly which data to delete and the page address;
- mention the one-month response deadline;
- ask for written confirmation of the deletion;
- not attach any ID document by default.
Leave [NAME], [EMAIL] and [DATE] in brackets. No threatening tone.
Prompt 3 · follow-up
On [DATE SENT], I asked the website [SITE NAME] to erase my data under Article 17 of the GDPR. I have had no reply.
Write a short, firm follow-up that recalls the date of the first request and the one-month deadline that has passed, and says that without a reply within 15 days I will contact [MY DATA PROTECTION AUTHORITY]. Keep my details in brackets.

Good to know

  • The right to erasure has exceptions, listed by the CNIL: freedom of information, legal retention duties, public-interest archives, legal claims.
  • A site may ask for proof of identity only if it has reasonable doubts about who you are. Do not send your ID by reflex.
  • Public-interest sites (government, news, business sites) do not offer removal in Google's tool.
  • Printed directories, published once a year, update more slowly than online ones.

Be careful. Never paste an ID document or your full contact details into an AI assistant: work with brackets and complete the final text yourself. Before handing your data to a paid service that promises to "erase everything", remember these steps are free and you can do them yourself.

Sources

Follow-ups and tracking for this kind of request can run on their own: that is the kind of automation I set up.