How Can I Check Whether Perplexity Repeats Personal Information From a Doxxing Review?

Which questions should you test?

• "Who owns [business]?" and "Who is the manager at [business]?"
• "[Staff member's name] [business]"
• "Complaints about [business] staff"
• "[Business] reviews"
• "Where does [owner's name] live?" or "[owner's name] phone number"
• "[Business] [town] problems"

Run each several times in Perplexity. Test the same questions in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI features too, since the review may be on pages they read as well. Record the full answer, any personal details, and every cited source.

What counts as personal information here?

Doxxing reviews typically include:

• A staff member's full name, linked to an accusation.
• A home address, personal phone number or personal social media account.
• Photos of a person taken or posted without consent.
• Details about family members.
• Health or other sensitive information about an employee or customer.

Business contact details, such as your shop's phone number or a manager's work title, are different. The concern is information about a private individual that could expose them to harm.

How do you get the source removed?

1. Report the review on its platform, under the personal information or harassment policy. Include the specific details that break the rules. Google's Maps policy defines personal information as information about a living, identifiable person whose disclosure could lead to harm.
2. Find copies. Search for distinctive phrases from the review. Review aggregators, screenshots and forum posts may have copied it.
3. Use Google's personal information removal process for search results that show someone's contact details, such as a home address or phone number. The process also covers pages that combine personal information with threats.
4. Ask other sites to remove copies, citing the same privacy concern.

Once the source is gone, Perplexity's answers usually follow when its index is refreshed. How Perplexity keeps citing removed content for a while is covered in why Perplexity still cites pages or reviews that were deleted or corrected.

How do you report it to Perplexity?

• Report the answer using the report option below the response, with the thread link and a note that it repeats personal information from a review.
• The individual concerned can make a privacy request through the route in Perplexity's privacy notice, asking for the personal information to be removed from answers. Privacy rights belong to the individual, so the request should come from them or with their authority.
• Keep records of each report and request, with dates.

How reporting works generally is covered in how to report an inaccurate Perplexity answer about your business.

How should you respond publicly?

Carefully, or not at all:

• Do not repeat or confirm the personal details in your reply.
• Do not reveal anything about the reviewer, such as whether they were a customer or what happened. Healthcare providers in the US have been penalised by the Department of Health and Human Services for disclosing patient information in replies to reviews.
• Keep any reply short: "We've reported this review because it shares personal information. Please contact us directly at [business email]."
• Support the staff member affected. Tell them what you are doing, and involve them in any privacy request.

When is it a safety matter?

If the review or related posts include threats, calls for others to harass someone, or someone's home address alongside hostility, contact the police and keep all evidence. Tell the staff member promptly. Platforms treat threats and harassment as serious violations, and Google's personal information removal process has a specific route for doxxing content that includes threats.

How do you confirm the details are gone?

Rerun your question set weekly for a month after the review is removed and reports are made, in Perplexity and the other assistants. Check that no answer mentions the personal details, and that no cited source still contains them. If details persist, look for copies you have not found yet, and follow up on your requests.

What might an illustrative case look like?

Consider an illustrative veterinary practice where an angry client posted a review naming a young nurse, with their personal social media account, and accusing them of mistreating a pet. Perplexity answers to "[practice] complaints" repeated the nurse's full name and the accusation, citing the review and a site that had copied it. The practice reported the review under the platform's personal information policy, and asked the copying site to remove its copy. With the practice's support, the nurse sent Perplexity a privacy request. The practice did not reply publicly beyond a short note that the review had been reported. The review was removed within a week and the copy a week later. By the end of the month, answers no longer mentioned the nurse.

What do people ask about doxxing reviews and AI answers?

Can the business make the privacy request for the employee?

The request should come from the individual or with their written authority, since privacy rights belong to them.

Will removing the review remove it from AI answers immediately?

Not immediately. Answers change as sources are recrawled, and copies elsewhere must be removed too.

Should we ask the reviewer to delete it?

Only if it is safe and appropriate, and without pressure or offers. Reporting to the platform is usually the better route.