An address search is something almost everyone wants to do. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you are) in California it’s also one of the most difficult pieces of information to accurately obtain. Everyone has an address history and I’m sure I could find a record of yours as well. However, it would probably be very outdated and inaccurate. So, we had our experts comb through the available resources in California, to see if there was anything available for the average Joe, or Jane Smith.
Official Access to Addresses in California
First off, everyone wants to keep their personal information safe. While California has many public records that are available to pretty much everyone, there is no official, by official I mean state run/sponsored database out there where you can go to request or search for someone’s address. In short, it is not possible to get someone’s address from the state itself. So…feel free to keep reading or skip to the bottom of the page for how we get the job done.
Personal information, such as our address, is included in many aspects of daily life. For example, every time you take action to open a bank account or change a driver’s license, your address is again blasted into cyberspace, so to speak, and that can’t be changed. You buy goods online; you put in your credit card information and of course your address; there it goes again. Of course you don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry to get a hold of, and especially not your psycho “ex.” So, while the state is not going to give out your address, it is not impossible for someone gets a hold of it through other means.
Address Forwarding, Junk Mail, and The NCOA
You may be wondering how, even though you moved, you keep receiving those annoying magazines that you never wanted in the first place. Did you fill out a change of address form? Well, like me, you probably never read the “fine print.” Addresses are not public information through the Post Office and they will not give out your address. However, when you fill out a change of address card for the post office to update your mailing address, well let’s just say that a lot more people are updated than the mail man. The post office keeps updated address lists and does sell these to commercial mailing lists, direct mail, and credit bureau companies through the National Change of Address system (NCOA). This is done to keep everything up to date and so they can keep sending you junk.
Anyway, the NCOA system is a secure dataset, to protect your privacy. The use of this product is only available through six different types of license categories. These licenses can be purchased for a pretty hefty price. For example, the “Interface Developer” license is $5000.00 initially with an annual fee of $1000.00. “The NCOA Software Developer License grants the right to develop an NCOA interface for internal purposes and third parties.”
Privacy Laws and Personal Information Protection
California itself has laws in place to specifically keep the privacy intact of government officials, judges, district attorneys, peace officers, and child abuse investigators among many others. This particular law, in case you are curious is, California Vehicle code Section 1808.4. California Vehicle Code Section 1808.21 is specifically about the privacy of an individual’s home address. Of course, this information is usually obtainable by a court order etc.
California also has a way for people who are living in actual fear from/because of someone, to protect their identities and addresses, though a program called “Safe at Home-a confidential address program.” This program, as its name suggests, provides confidential address services to those that are living in fear as a result of experiencing some domestic abuse, stalking and even those who work at reproductive health clinics and need protection because of the work they do. Of course, there are others who might also be interested in this service. You apply through “enrolling agencies,” an organization such as a domestic violence shelter or victim/witness assistance program which most every county in California has. Then, most, if not all mail gets sent to offices in Sacramento where it then gets forwarded to your house. In fact, many states have similar programs.
The Long and Short
Anyway, after all is said and done, you still don’t know how to get that address history for someone in California. The simplest way we know how is to use an online service to conduct a California people search using just a name to get started. The companies that offer these searches guarantee them, but you may not receive any results at all. However, short of hiring a private investigator for $1,000′s, it’s the simplest way to obtain an address history in the state of California.
Categories: State News and Tips
