Innovis is a US-based consumer credit reporting agency. It’s a less popular version of Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Like its competitors, Innovis gathers personal data from a variety of sources, repackages it, and sells it to insurers, mortgage lenders, and banks in the form of consumer credit reports.
An Innovis credit report details your credit history by listing accounts that are active now or have been in the past. It also includes your name, Social Security number, address, date of birth, and telephone number.
Unfortunately, Innovis is exempt from the "data subject access request” rights that are a feature of laws such as California’s CCPA, so you can’t ask it to delete your information. What you can do is prevent the disclosure of your Innovis Credit Report to new creditors, and opt out of firm offers of credit or insurance.
Read on to find out how to opt out of Innovis lists used by credit card companies and insurers.
How to stop your credit report from being shared
Consumers have the right to prevent the disclosure of their credit report to new creditors. So-called security freezes are normally used to prevent escalations of identity theft. If a criminal tries to open a new account in your name, the lenders will first try to obtain your credit report. If this is unavailable via a security freeze, then lenders normally turn down the application.
Do the following to place a security freeze on your credit report:
- Open the Innovis Security Freeze Request Online form.
- Choose "Request a Security Freeze” from the options.
- Enter your name, phone number, date of birth, Social Security number, and address.
- Identify whether you have been a victim of identity theft.
- Click "Submit Request.”
You will receive a letter confirming the freeze and a 10-digit Security Freeze PIN. Note that some third parties will still have access to your credit report, even when frozen.
These include:
- Companies that have current accounts or relationships with you
- Collection agencies acting on behalf of companies that have a current account or existing relationship with you
- Credit monitoring companies
- State or local agencies including law enforcement or child support agencies
- Federal government agencies as permitted under the Fair Credit Reporting Act
How to opt out of unsolicited offers of credit
Innovis credit reports are used by credit card companies and insurers to determine which consumers are good targets for their products. Those who meet their criteria may be sent pre-approved credit cards or insurance offers.
If you object to receiving these morally dubious offers of credit or insurance in the mail, you can call 1-888-567-8688 and ask to be opted out of Innovis’ marketing lists. Alternatively, visit the centralized service for accepting and processing "Opt-In" or "Opt-Out" requests, and fill in the online form. Take the following steps:
- Open optoutprescreen.com
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "CLICK HERE TO OPT-IN OR OPT-OUT” button.
- Select "Permanent Opt-Out by Mail” and click "CONTINUE”.
- Enter your name and address. DON’T enter your date of birth or Social Security number.
- Click "CONFIRM”.
- Print out the pre-generated confirmation letter by clicking the embedded "click here” link on the next page.
- Sign and date the letter and mail it to: Opt-Out Department, P.O. Box 530200, Atlanta, GA 30353.
Once received and processed, your name will be removed from the firm offer lists provided by Innovis, as well as those from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
Where does Innovis get my information from?
Innovis primarily obtains its data from publicly available documents published by federal, state, and local governments. This makes it privy to consumers’ Social Security numbers, bankruptcy filings and records, and court filings and findings.
Of course, Innovis isn’t the only company consulting these records. There are hundreds of organizations constantly on the hunt for personal data that they can trade online. This data is scraped from social media sites, forums, as well as the aforementioned publicly available records.
The good news is that you can stop your data from being commodified in this way. Residents of the EU, UK, Switzerland, and some US states are able to request that their data be deleted – often known as "the right to erasure.”
However, given the vast – and likely unknowable – number of companies trading in your data, manually trying to contact them with deletion requests is something of a Sisyphean task. The good news is that numerous services are available to do the hard work for you. These companies contact data brokers with deletion requests, make sure your data is deleted, and then check again to make sure it hasn’t been re-added at a later date.
Best service for data removal
Let’s take a look at how the best data removal service works in a little more detail.
Incogni is the best in the business and takes care of the tedious work of contacting individual data brokers with data removal requests, before subsequently chasing them up. Developed by the same company responsible for the user-friendly Surfshark VPN, Incogni offers a similarly intuitive service. The process is straightforward: sign up, specify the personal data you want removed, and grant authorization for Incogni to contact data brokers on your behalf. From there, you can sit back and relax. An online dashboard keeps you informed about the status of your deletion requests, including the number of requests issued, completed, and currently in progress. If you're curious, you can also view the list of specific companies that Incogni has contacted. Incogni boasts connections with over 180 data brokers, encompassing a wide range of data types such as marketing, recruitment, risk assessment, people search, financial, and health information. The selection of which companies to initially target is based on the likelihood of them possessing your data. Once Incogni successfully removes your personal information, it periodically checks to ensure the company doesn't re-add your data. It's important to note that data removal is an ongoing process, so it's worth considering your long-term commitment before getting started. Incogni offers annual plans at $6.49 per month or a month-to-month option for $12.99 per month. Subscriptions include a 30-day money-back guarantee, allowing you to test the service without financial risk. However, keep in mind that data brokers often have 30 days or more to remove your data once contacted – so you likely won’t see any benefits before the money-back guarantee expires. 1. Incogni
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Can’t I just contact data brokers myself?
You can, but it requires digging around on each site for the opt out method and then initiating the removal process. We have guides on how to opt out of a few of them if you want to try:
- PeopleLooker
- Intelius
- BeenVerified
How to opt out of Innovis – FAQs