Can AI find your home address?

In late 2025, reporters asked Grok’s free web version for the home addresses of 33 ordinary, non-famous people. It returned correct addresses for 10 of them — often with phone numbers and family members attached. No hacking. Just a question.

Why this is possible

Web-connected AI models don’t “know” your address — they retrieve it. People-search sites and data brokers publish and resell your home address, phone, relatives, and past addresses. A model cross-references those sources in seconds, doing in one prompt what used to take a determined stalker weeks.

Some models refuse these requests on privacy grounds. Others answer. Your safety shouldn’t depend on which app the wrong person opens.

How to shrink the target

• Remove yourself from data brokers. Opt out of the major people-search sites. In California, the new DROP platform lets you send one deletion request to every registered broker.
• Lock down source photos. Images can reveal your neighborhood from backgrounds and signage — audit what’s public.
• Re-check regularly. Removal isn’t permanent; brokers re-list you within months, so it has to be a habit, not a one-time event.
• Monitor the models. Test what each AI returns about your location so you catch a new exposure early.

The recurring part

The reason people pay for this is simple: broker removal decays. Do it once and you’re clear for a season; ignore it and the data flows back. Ongoing removal + monitoring is what keeps your exposure shrinking instead of creeping back.

Sources: Futurism (Grok address findings, 2025); California Privacy Protection Agency DROP platform, 2026.