Hi Ladies,

Coming through with a reminder about staying safe in these treacherous times. Especially for those who are more established.

Your real name is a commodity. Do not reveal it until you feel safe. Why? A lvm can use it to find out a lot about you. I’m a lawyer and I use these powers for good, but I am constantly surprised how much I can find about people by knowing where to look in public records.

A legal name enables you to find: Professional licenses, business ownership or affiliations, voter registrations, property ownership, mortgages and deeds, legal records, and much more, online, in minutes. Importantly, these records will contain work and personal addresses, your birthdate, and other sensitive information. When I’m trying to figure out where someone lives and their date of birth, it’s traffic tickets that come in clutch most often.

These being public records they can only be scrubbed in incredibly limited situations that most people won’t qualify for- so they’ll always be there. You can avoid them being misused by giving men a nickname, not sharing your last name, etc. If you have a unique first or last name, treat that like gold, as the search engines that allow partial names will find you easily.

Toy around with these systems on your own to see how they work and what’s already available on you. I, for example found that despite other attorneys having same/similar names, there is a specific portion of my name, that when searched in the Florida Bar registry pulls up my license (which also gives my work address, email, and phone number) immediately. That affects how much of my name and what nickname I would go by with someone I haven’t vetted yet.

An interesting caveat is some states have laws surrounding use of this information. For example there may be a disclaimer before clicking to see results or making the search that affirm you’re not using it for an illegal or improper purpose. If you’re in one of those states, in theory someone looking you up to harass you or cause harm to you could be breaking the law. Unfortunately though that’s only going to help in retrospect.