How to Remove Your Name and Personal Information From Google Search in India

Can you remove your name from Google search?

Every removal therefore works on two layers. The first is Google's policy layer: forms and tools that take a result out of Google Search, either for every query or only for searches that include your name. The second is the source layer: getting the page edited or deleted by the website owner, by the platform's Grievance Officer under the IT Rules 2021, or by a court. You can file the first yourself at no cost; only the second reaches other search engines, shared links and social media.

What personal information will Google remove from search results?

Google's policy on personal information lists what it will consider removing: your home address, phone number or email address; confidential government ID numbers, described as tax and resident ID numbers, whose Indian equivalents are PAN and Aadhaar; bank account and card numbers; pictures of your signature or an ID document; private records such as medical records; and confidential usernames and passwords. You can file the request yourself, or a representative can file it on your behalf.

Google also removes doxxing content, which it defines as private information shared to harm you. A page qualifies when it shows your details alongside explicit or implicit threats, or calls for others to harm or harass you, or when it gathers a significant amount of your personal information without a legitimate purpose. Separate routes cover intimate images, whether real or fabricated, non-explicit images of people under 18, and sites that demand payment before removing content about you.

How to file a personal information removal request, step by step

Start by collecting evidence. Google reviews only the web addresses you submit, never your name in general, so list the full URL of every page showing your details and screenshot each with the information visible, ideally on the device you will file from. Then open Google's Remove content about you page, choose the narrowest category that fits, and enter the exposed details exactly as the page shows them. A request saying only that a page is unfair fits no category and is likely to fail.

Google confirms requests by email and reports its decision the same way. An approved result is removed either for every search or only for searches containing your name; Google chooses the narrower option when the page also carries information of public value or about other people. Keep a dated record of every URL, request and reply; if Google refuses, you can refile with better evidence or move to the source layer, where that record becomes your evidence.

Results about you: what it does, and whether it works in India

Results about you is a monitoring dashboard in your Google account. You enter your name and the contact details to watch for, including old addresses, a nickname or a maiden name. Google checks its results regularly, alerts you to matches, and lets you request removal from the dashboard, showing each request as in progress, approved, denied or undone. It will not act on information you control yourself, such as your own social media profile or blog, which you can delete directly.

On 10 February 2026 Google extended the tool to find government ID numbers, such as passport and driving licence numbers, starting in the United States with other regions to follow. Google also describes some features as rolling out to adults in certain markets, so what you see depends on your account and country. Where it is available on your account, use it; where it is not, the detailed removal request form accepts the same categories of request from India.

What Google will not remove, and why

Google weighs public interest in every request. Its policy says it may decline content that is newsworthy or important to the public, and its Results about you rules say it will not remove contact details from pages owned by government bodies, educational institutions or newspapers. A director's details in an official register or a phone number on a college website are therefore unlikely candidates for the privacy form.

Nor does Google judge whether content about you is fair. A critical blog post, a harsh review or a one-sided article is not personal information in the policy sense. False or otherwise unlawful content needs a legal removal request under local law, and in a disputed case the document that settles the matter in India is usually a court order: Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules 2021 recognises only a court order, or a reasoned intimation from an authorised government officer, as the actual knowledge that obliges an intermediary to take unlawful content down.

How to get the page itself taken down in India

Start with the website owner. Directories, people-search sites and forums often list a contact or removal address: write to it, identify the exact URL and the details to delete, and keep the reply. Once the owner deletes the page or edits out your details, Google's Refresh Outdated Content tool lets you ask Google to update the result, so the stale listing stops appearing.

Where the page sits on a platform, the platform is an intermediary bound by the IT Rules 2021 and must publish its Grievance Officer's name and contact details. Complaints must be acknowledged within 24 hours and resolved within seven days, and a request to remove content covered by Rule 3(1)(b), which includes material invasive of another's privacy, within 36 hours. An amendment in force from 20 February 2026 shortened each of these clocks, as the table below shows.

Word the complaint to fit the faster track. The 36-hour window excludes complaints resting only on the general ground that content breaks some law, which fall back to seven days. A complaint about an exposed address, phone number or ID number should therefore state expressly that the content is invasive of your privacy under Rule 3(1)(b)(ii), give the exact URL and the details exposed, and confirm that you are the person concerned.

If the Grievance Officer rejects the complaint, or fails to respond, you can appeal online to the Grievance Appellate Committee; an appeal against a decision must be filed within 30 days of receiving it, and the committee aims to decide appeals within 30 days. Where the host is a publisher rather than a platform, or refuses outright, the next steps are a legal notice and then a court. Once a court orders removal, an intermediary must comply within three hours of receiving the order.

Aadhaar number, PAN and bank details on Google: what Indian law adds

Aadhaar has its own statutory protection against publication. Section 29(4) of the Aadhaar Act 2016 provides that no Aadhaar number, demographic information or photograph collected under the Act shall be published, displayed or posted publicly, except as regulations permit, and Regulation 6 of the Aadhaar (Sharing of Information) Regulations 2016 states that an individual's Aadhaar number shall not be published, displayed or posted publicly by any person, entity or agency. A page showing your full Aadhaar number is unlawful in itself, not merely intrusive.

That gives you a statutory footing at every layer: Google's form for the search result, a written request to the website citing section 29(4), and a privacy complaint to the platform's Grievance Officer. Regulation 6 also forbids any entity to make public a record containing Aadhaar numbers unless the numbers are redacted or blacked out, which is the precise request to make of an organisation that has uploaded a list, form or document with numbers visible.

The Aadhaar Act's publication bar is specific to Aadhaar. PAN, passport and bank account numbers are covered instead by Google's government ID and financial information categories, and their exposure is a fraud risk as much as a privacy one. If a card or account number is exposed, alert your bank immediately; if someone has already tried to misuse it, call 1930, the national helpline for cyber financial fraud run under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Doxxing in India: which laws apply

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 contains no offence called doxxing, so the conduct is dealt with through the offences it involves. Posting someone's address or phone number with a threat to their person, reputation or property, intended to cause alarm, can be criminal intimidation under section 351 of the BNS, punishable with up to two years, or up to seven where the threat is of death or grievous hurt. A threat made anonymously, or by someone concealing who they are, carries up to two further years.

Where a man follows a woman and repeatedly contacts her despite a clear indication of disinterest, or monitors her use of the internet, email or other electronic communication, section 78 of the BNS makes it stalking, punishable with up to three years on a first conviction and five on a repeat. Section 72A of the IT Act punishes a person who obtained someone's personal information while providing services under a lawful contract and discloses it without consent, intending or knowing it likely to cause wrongful loss or gain. False claims attached to the details may also be defamation under section 356 of the BNS (formerly sections 499 and 500 of the IPC).

Report threats to the police or through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, which takes complaints about crimes against women and children as well as other cyber crime. Preserve screenshots showing the full URL, the date and the account that posted, and attach the complaint reference to your platform complaint and to your Google doxxing report.

Intimate images and deepfakes: the two-hour rule

Intimate images are the most urgent category, and the law now treats them that way. Rule 3(2)(b) of the IT Rules 2021 requires a platform, within two hours of a complaint by the person shown or someone acting for them, to take all reasonable and practicable measures to remove content that exposes their private area, shows them fully or partly nude or in a sexual act, or impersonates them electronically, including artificially morphed images. Until 20 February 2026 the limit was 24 hours.

Google's personal sexual content route covers real and fabricated imagery, including deepfakes, as well as pages that wrongly link your name to pornography, and for these requests Google also looks for duplicates. Because such material spreads to mirror sites, Telegram channels and hosts abroad, removal is usually a sweep across many URLs rather than a single request; the leaked photo and video removal page sets out the routes platform by platform. Never screenshot or forward material showing anyone under 18: report it to Google and to the police.

Old news reports and court records about you

For news reports and court judgments, the public-interest rule described above usually decides a privacy request against you. The routes that work are different: an update or correction by the publisher, defamation proceedings where the report is false, and, where the facts support it, an application to a court for an order directing that the result be delisted.

Both situations have their own guides on this site, one on removing news articles about an arrest from Google and one on removing a court judgment from Google and Indian Kanoon. The sequencing point applies to each: lead with the document showing the report is now incomplete, such as an acquittal, a discharge or a settlement, and treat the privacy form as a last resort.

The DPDP Act's right to erasure: what changes from May 2027

Section 12 of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 gives you a right to have an organisation erase your personal data, which it must do unless keeping it is necessary for the specified purpose or for compliance with law. The right is not yet in force. The DPDP Rules 2025 were notified on 13 November 2025 with an eighteen-month phase-in, and section 12 takes effect with the other rights of Data Principals in May 2027; the Rules then give organisations 90 days to answer such requests.

The right is narrower than it sounds. As drafted it attaches to personal data you provided with consent, such as details given to an app, a lender or a marketplace, and the Act does not apply to data you made public yourself or that someone is legally obliged to publish. A complaint to the Data Protection Board lies only after the organisation's own grievance process has been exhausted, and until May 2027 a request invoking section 12 has no statutory force.

When you need legal help, and what it costs

Most people can deal with a directory listing, a single doxxing post or an exposed Aadhaar number themselves. Professional help earns its cost when a platform or publisher refuses, when the host is abroad or anonymous, when the same details recur across dozens of pages, when a threat or an intimate image makes hours matter, or when only a court order will do. Be wary of any offer to erase your name from Google, which Google does not do; ask instead which URLs will be handled, by which route, and what happens to the fee if a platform refuses.

RepuLex, India's #1 legal-first online reputation management agency, maps every URL where your details appear, files the Google de-indexing and platform complaints, and escalates where they fail. It is not a law firm: notices under an advocate's signature and court filings go through its partner law firm, Unified Chambers And Associates. Standard-complexity removals are priced at ₹99,999 per URL, and national news, court-reported and legal-database URLs are quoted separately from ₹1,00,000, excluding 18% GST. Fees are payable in advance and refunded in full if the agreed removal is not delivered within the agreed timeline, including where a platform refuses.