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Personal exposure audit

Work through the places New Zealanders' names, addresses and routines are most often published, check yourself, and fix what you can.

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This is the self-audit Faraday runs with clients, free for anyone to use. It takes about an hour if you do it all at once, or you can do a section at a time. Start with the items marked as higher impact if you're short on time or worried about someone in particular.

If someone who knows you well, such as a current or former partner, may be monitoring your devices, use a device they've never had access to and read the technology-facilitated abuse guide before changing anything.

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Public registers

New Zealand publishes more about home owners, voters and company directors than many people realise. Most of it can be reduced, and some of it can only be reduced if you ask.

Electoral roll Higher impact

What it can reveal: The printed roll lists your name, address and occupation. It can be inspected publicly, and it is used to issue votes.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Check your enrolment details at vote.nz. Assume the address you are enrolled at is visible to anyone who inspects the printed roll.

Reduce: If publishing your details could put you or your family at risk, apply to the Electoral Commission for the unpublished roll. You will need supporting information, such as a protection order or a letter from Police or a support agency. You will cast a special vote and won't be able to download voting papers.

How the unpublished roll works

Where are you with this?

Companies Register Higher impact

What it can reveal: Directors' names and residential addresses, and shareholders' names and addresses, for every New Zealand company. Old filings stay searchable.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Search your own name on the Companies Register and open each company's director and shareholder details, including documents filed in past years.

Reduce: From 18 November 2026, a director who believes their published home address is likely to lead to physical or mental harm can apply to replace it with an alternative address, with a statutory declaration. It does not cover former directorships. Shareholders are only covered if they are also the applying director, or live with them and consent.

Director address changes, explained

Where are you with this?

Council rating information database Higher impact

What it can reveal: Councils must make owner names and postal addresses available for each rating unit. Many publish this online, searchable by street address.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Search your property on your council's rates or property search page and see whether your name and postal address appear.

Reduce: You have a right under s 28C of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 to ask the council in writing to withhold your name, postal address, or both. It is free. At several councils, one owner's request removes all owners' details for that property.

Request rates suppression in five minutes

Where are you with this?

Land titles

What it can reveal: Records of title name the registered owners. Anyone can buy a copy of a title for a small fee.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Assume the name on your title is obtainable by anyone who knows your address.

Reduce: There is no general opt-out. Withholding your details from the rates database does not change the title. For future purchases, get legal advice about whether an ownership structure suits your safety needs.

Where are you with this?

Personal Property Securities Register

What it can reveal: When you borrow against a car or buy on finance, the lender may register a financing statement. The register can be searched by first and last name, for a small fee, with a declaration of a legitimate reason.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Search your own name on the PPSR. Look for registrations you don't recognise, which can be a sign of identity fraud.

Reduce: Ask the secured party to remove registrations once a debt is repaid. Challenge registrations you didn't agree to.

Where are you with this?

.nz domain registrations

What it can reveal: Who registered a .nz domain, and their contact details, unless privacy is applied.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Look up any .nz domain you have registered personally.

Reduce: Individuals not using a domain for significant trade can ask their registrar to apply the .nz privacy option, which withholds address and phone details from public lookups.

Where are you with this?

Consents and council documents

What it can reveal: Resource consent applications, submissions, objections and some building records can include names and addresses, and some are published online.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Search your council's consents portal for your address and your name.

Reduce: When you make a submission or application, ask what will be published. Use an agent's or postal address where you're allowed to.

Where are you with this?

Court and tribunal decisions

What it can reveal: Published decisions name parties and sometimes witnesses unless names are suppressed. News reports follow.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Search your name with words like court, tribunal or decision.

Reduce: If you are involved in proceedings, ask your lawyer about name suppression early. For old, inaccurate or outdated pages, ask the publisher to update them and ask search engines to remove them.

Where are you with this?

Your own digital footprint

Most exposure comes from things we post, or things posted about us, over years.

Search engines

What it can reveal: Whatever the web says about you in one place, including old profiles, club results, news, and documents with your phone number or address.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Search your full name, name plus suburb, your phone number, your email addresses and your home address. Use a private browser window so results aren't personalised. Check image results too.

Reduce: Ask site owners to remove or update content first, because search engines only hide it. Google accepts requests to remove results containing personal contact details and some other personal information.

Where are you with this?

Social media profiles

What it can reveal: Friends lists, tagged photos, check-ins, workplace, school, birthday and old public posts.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: View each profile as a stranger would (most platforms have a 'view as' option or you can log out). Look at tagged photos and posts others made about you.

Reduce: Lock down friends lists and tagging approval. Remove your birthday year and workplace if you don't need them public. Archive old public posts.

Where are you with this?

Photos that give away location

What it can reveal: House numbers, street signs, car plates, school uniforms and views from your window. Some photo files also carry GPS location data.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Scroll your public photos looking only for location clues. Check whether your phone camera saves location.

Reduce: Turn off camera location or strip it before sharing. Crop or blur identifying details. Post after you've left a place.

Where are you with this?

Fitness, running and mapping apps

What it can reveal: Activity maps that start and finish at your home, regular routes and times.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Look at your public activities and your profile as a stranger.

Reduce: Set privacy zones around home and work, or make activities visible to followers only.

Where are you with this?

Marketplaces and community groups

What it can reveal: Pick-up suburbs, phone numbers in listings, and neighbourhood posts that pair your name with your street.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Search old listings and community group posts for your phone number and street.

Reduce: Use platform messaging rather than your number. Meet in public for pick-ups if you have safety concerns.

Where are you with this?

Work profiles and staff pages

What it can reveal: Employer, role, office location, colleagues and photo. Combined with other sources, this tells someone where to find you during the day.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Look at your LinkedIn and your employer's website as a stranger.

Reduce: Hide connections, remove your photo from public view if needed, and ask your employer about removing you from staff pages if you have safety concerns.

Where are you with this?

Breached accounts

What it can reveal: Email addresses and sometimes passwords leaked in data breaches. Criminals use these to break into accounts and to make scams convincing.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Check your email addresses on How Exposed Am I, the NCSC's tool.

Reduce: Change any password you've reused, starting with email and banking. Turn on two-step verification or passkeys.

Account security that holds

Where are you with this?

People and accounts around you

Your privacy also lives in other people's posts and in accounts you share.

Family and whānau posts

What it can reveal: Birthday posts, children's schools, holiday plans and tagged photos at your home.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Look at what relatives and close friends have posted publicly that includes you.

Reduce: Have the conversation. Ask people not to tag you, not to post your children's schools, and to post holiday photos after you're home.

Where are you with this?

Clubs, schools and newsletters

What it can reveal: Rosters, results, team photos and newsletters with names, ages and regular times and places.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Search your name and your children's names with your club or school.

Reduce: Ask the organisation to use first names only, to remove old documents, or not to publish you. Under the Privacy Act they need to be open about what they publish.

Where are you with this?

Shared accounts and location sharing Higher impact

What it can reveal: Family phone plans, shared cloud photo albums, shared calendars and location-sharing apps can show your location and messages to people who once had legitimate access.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: List every account another person can see into, such as your phone plan, cloud storage, streaming, calendars, location sharing and smart home devices. On iPhone, Safety Check reviews sharing in one place.

Reduce: Remove people who no longer need access. If you're leaving an abusive relationship, plan changes with an advocate first, because sudden changes can alert the other person.

Technology-facilitated abuse

Where are you with this?

Account recovery details Higher impact

What it can reveal: An old phone number or email address set as recovery lets whoever controls it reset your accounts.

How to check yourself, and what to do

Check: Open the security settings of your email, Apple or Google account, banking and social media. Check every recovery phone number and email.

Reduce: Remove any recovery option you don't control. Ask your mobile provider to add a PIN or password to your account to make SIM swaps harder.

Where are you with this?

Sources

  1. Can you go on the unpublished roll?Electoral Commission. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. New law related to directors' residential addressesCompanies Office. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. New address protections for directorsInstitute of Directors. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Local Government (Rating) Amendment Act 2004 (inserts s 28C, withholding owner details)New Zealand Legislation. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Withholding names and postal addresses from the rating information database (example form)Dunedin City Council. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Searching for a debtor personPersonal Property Securities Register. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. How Exposed Am INational Cyber Security Centre. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. Personal Safety User GuideApple. Checked 19 October 2026.

Something wrong or out of date? Tell us or edit this page on GitHub. General information, not legal advice.