Privacy Bee Review 2024: We Tested It To See if It’s Worth the Cost

Privacy Bee is one of the most expensive data removal options, but it also requests removals from over 855 data brokers — one of the highest numbers we've seen. So if you're looking at it from a pure numbers game, this could be your answer.

We signed up for a year of Privacy Bee using our own data so we can see if it actually makes a difference. Can it stand up against the best data removal services out there?

Privacy Bee review at a glance

Our experience

We used Privacy Bee for a few weeks to see if it was worth the price tag. Over that time, it found 338 data exposures and sent out 36 removal requests. This is a bit less than what Incogni did in a similar time frame, but not bad.

When signing up, we first tried the "Free Privacy Evaluation," which essentially allowed us to access the dashboard for monitoring purposes, but no deletion requests would be sent out on our behalf.

To access the dashboard, we needed to provide our email, first name, last name, birthday, and home address. This is what Privacy Bee uses to search the internet for your information, and they claim to be "SOC2 certified" by a third party auditor. This means they were found to be compliant of safe management of customer data.

Once we gave them our info and paid the fee, we were able to access the dashboard and start getting data removal requests sent out. To do so, we had to sign a Limited Power of Attorney form in order for them to be able to send out data removal requests on our behalf.

While this can feel a bit unnerving, this isn't the first time we've encountered having to sign a similar form, so we weren't surprised it. We've encountered something similar with Incogni and read through the form to make sure everything was extremely limited.

Once that was done, we checked back on our dashboard a few weeks later. It displayed a list of requests going out as recently as two hours ago, plus a helpful timeline of when it thinks our data will be removed from all sites it contacted.

While it was nice to see the company work on lowering my privacy risk score (which went down 27 points in a month), the broken Active Exposures and Excruciating Details tabs made it difficult to dive into the details. The former showed up completely empty, despite the dashboard notifying me of over 300 exposures, and the latter populated but none of the filtering options worked.

For such a high price, we at least expect a working site.

We also tested the "Manage Your Trust" tab, which let us scroll through a list of companies and choose whether we trust them or not. If you mark a company as untrusted, Privacy Bee will block tracking requests when you visit the sites, as long as you have their browser extension installed.

Overall, Privacy Bee would've been a really good experience if it wasn't for the broken tabs and the high price. As it stands now, it's tough to fully recommend.

Who is Privacy Bee best for?

• Recommend for people who want as many data removal requests sent out as possible

Privacy Bee has one of the highest amount of data brokers and people search sites that we've seen so far in our research. It claims to have over 855 sites, where top competitors like DeleteMe only boasts 750+ and Incogni only has 170.

If your main objective is to get as many data removal requests out as possible, Privacy Bee is your answer. If you're looking for extra features, then this impressive number may not be enough to sway you.

Privacy Bee prices and subscriptions

Privacy Bee has only one plan, the Pro plan, which costs $197.00/yr. Privacy Bee offers a free account that gives you access to a privacy evaluation and the ability to indicate trusted and untrusted sites. But for many of Privacy Bee’s features, such as removing your personal information from data brokers, you’ll need the Premiere Privacy Protection plan.

Compared to other data removal products on the market, this is quite a steep price point. Here's how it compares against three of the best options on the market.

Privacy Bee security features

Privacy Bee's main feature is to make data removal requests on your behalf, but they do offer a few extra features as well. These include a browser extension that blocks trackers, an inbox scan to clean up your email, and a private search feature.

What data does Privacy Bee protect?

Privacy Bee can remove and protect lots of your personally identifiable information including:

• Name
• Home address
• Phone numbers
• Email addresses
• Social Security numbers
• Driver’s licenses
• Credit scores
  
• Employment history
• Social media handles

Data brokers and people search sites covered

• # of sites covered: 855+

Privacy Bee boasts the highest amount of data brokers and people search sites that we've seen so far in our research, with over 800 promised in their various marketing campaigns.

In practice, we found 488 sites were added to our detailed dashboard after about a month of using Privacy Bee, but this number should continue rising as more scans are conducted.

Recurring and custom removal

Privacy Bee sends out recurring removal requests on your behalf, which are sent every 60 days in accordance with the regulations set out by both the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Though there's no option for submitting a custom removal on your dashboard, Privacy Bee's support guides indicate that you can reach out to the support team via email to request custom removals. You can also request that certain sites be prioritized over others, if there's a specific data broker you're targeting.

Bonus features

Privacy Bee also offers a few additional features that make it easier to have a proactive approach to protecting your privacy. As with most of its features, they work only if you have a premium membership.

Email scan

Privacy Bee’s email scan feature scans your email mailbox to identify the companies that you regularly interact with and helps you specify which companies should have access to your contact information. Privacy Bee currently has the capability to scan only Gmail email addresses but indicates that Yahoo and Outlook will be coming soon.

Privacy Bee doesn’t share a lot of information about how this email service works before you set it up. To set up the email scan, you’ll need to Enable IMAP with your email service provider and follow the additional steps to get it set up.

Private web search

The private web search tool works almost like a virtual private network (VPN) or an ad blocker by allowing you to search the internet without companies gaining access to your information. As you use this, Privacy Bee blocks any website tracking or cookies. It also doesn't keep information about what you search.

Industry opt-outs

This feature allows you to opt out of having your information shared with common marketing companies, such as Publishers Clearing House. You can also indicate that you’d like to be removed from credit pre-screen offers or that you want to be added to the National Do Not Call Registry. 

You can also opt-out of WhitePages listings and other directories from this page too. These opt-outs can help minimize the amount of junk mail you’re receiving.

Google info removal

When you're setting up your account, you’ll find the ability to blur your house on Google Street View and Apple Maps. This may not be something that you previously considered a privacy concern, but it’s nice to be able to do so, if you wish. Privacy Bee notes that if you do blur your house, the action is permanent and cannot be undone.

If you want to remove your information from Google, this is one place to start.

Browser extensions

Privacy Bee has another helpful feature: its browser extensions. These extensions allow you to designate trusted sites while inside your internet browser instead of navigating back to your Privacy Bee account.

When you’re on a website, you can use the browser extension to see information about the trustworthiness of the company. You’ll be able to easily mark the company as trusted or not, and you’ll be able to create custom privacy choices for each site.

Does Privacy Bee keep your data safe?

Based on its privacy policy, Privacy Bee doesn't sell or share any personal information with outside data brokers. It does keep logs of some information about how users interact with the website, what they access, and websites that users visited before and after visiting Privacy Bee. It also provides options to opt-out depending on where you reside.

Privacy Bee uses SSL to increase security, and it encrypts all databases, but it does not specify which encryption method they use. Instead, Privacy Bee says it is “according to cybersecurity best practices,” but we wish it was more specific.

Privacy Bee customer support

Privacy Bee's main customer support options are their guides or email. When you go to the Support tab on your dashboard, you'll be informed that you can expect an answer within five hours.

Top alternatives

Privacy Bee comes with tons of features, but its price point may be high for some. That's why we've compiled a list of alternative data removal services for you to consider:

Starting price	From $10.75/mo (billed annually)	From $7.49/mo (billed annually)	From $9.00/mo (billed annually)
Max # of people covered	4	4	5
Data broker opt-out
# of site removals	750+	180+	30+
Privacy reports
Real-time alerts
Mehr erfahren	Get DeleteMe	Get Incogni	Get Aura

Privacy Bee FAQs

Bottom line: Is Privacy Bee good?

Privacy Bee is a useful data removal tool for someone who wants to erase personal information from as many sites as possible. However, without a free membership or trial, it’s hard to invest $197.00/yr into a service that we can't confirm is effective. You might find a monthly subscription to Incogni ($14.98/mo) easier to swallow.

Privacy Bee is easy to navigate, and it provides interesting data about your overall privacy. However, even if you pay for the service, you still have to check to see if your information is removed. You may not know if it was removed until there is a data breach and your information is jeopardized. 

Overall, we wouldn’t spend the money on Privacy Bee unless we were in a situation where information needed to be removed faster than we could do it ourselves. Privacy Bee still requires some work, so you’re not out of the woods even with the service. If you're worried about the information on a specific site, you can request that the information is removed without using Privacy Bee. It just takes a little bit of work on your part.

If you want to see how Privacy Bee compares against some of the best data removal tools on the internet, check out our in-depth reviews:

• Incogni vs. Privacy Bee
• DeleteMe vs. Privacy Bee

4.2

AllAboutCookies writers and editors score products based on a number of objective features as well as our expert editorial assessment. Our partners do not influence how we rate products.

Editorial Rating

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On Privacy Bee's website

Privacy Protection

Privacy Bee

• Easy-to-understand reports
• Comes with a Chrome extension to block trackers
• Expensive

Author Details

Andrew Adams

About the Author

Andrew Strom Adams is a freelance writer focused on online privacy and digital security. He writes on various topics to help individuals protect themselves on the internet. Andrew has worked in legal marketing, technology, and startups. He has more than 12 years of experience in marketing and communications. He holds an M.B.A. from Westminster College and a B.A. in journalism from Oklahoma Baptist University. When he’s not writing, he’s playing with his two kids or watching reality TV.

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