Google updates: Easily delete your data, from passport to driver’s license

After a small and necessary modification to its home page, Google has expanded capabilities to delete personal information of the user in the “Results about you” function.

This functionality, available in Spain from the summer of 2024, allows users remove sensitive data from search results such as your telephone number, email or residential address.

New updates include the option to delete data such as driving license, passport and social security number.

Google just made this announcement on their blog, and this tool can be accessed through the Google app, by selecting the user account and then «Results about you».

If it is the first time we use this function, according to TechCrunchwe will be shown several screens that describe its main utilities, such as request for deletion of personal data.

The first screen asks us to add our name so that Google can monitor the information we want to protect.

Then, as a novelty, the possibility of entering documents such as the ID card, social security number or driving license.

It is possible to select the identification data we want for Google to monitor them and alert us if you detect them in the search results.

Later, other previously available data can be added, such as home address, telephone number or email.

Once all the data is confirmed, Google will automatically monitor search results and will notify the user if it detects personal information in them.

Google clarifies that removing this information from the search engine does not imply its total elimination from the Internet, but it helps maintain the privacy of the information.

This “Results About You” update is currently rolling out in the United States, with plans to expand to more regions in the future.

Removal of explicit images without consent

A new feature is the image deletion request explicit without consent in the Google search engine.

To request deletion, you just need to click on the three dots on the image, select “delete result” and then choose “Show a sexual image of me”.

An advantage of this novelty is the ability to select multiple images to request its elimination using a single form, instead of having to report each one separately.

Although it is necessary to wait a while for Google to process the requests, there is now a space where you can review the tracking statuses of all the requests made.