Discreet removal work for chiefs of staff

Key facts for chiefs of staff and executive assistants

An engagement can be contracted through a family office, a holding company or a management company, so the principal's name need not appear on the paperwork.

A story can stop appearing in search results for the principal's name while the article itself stays exactly where it is. In most private matters that is the outcome that actually matters.

GDPR Article 17, the right to erasure, applies to personal data about European residents and is the basis of most delisting in Europe and the United Kingdom.

A syndicated story is legally separate from the original, so a wire copy on a regional site can sometimes be resolved when the originating publication will not move.

The UK Defamation Act 2013 requires serious harm, and for a company serious financial loss, which is why an accurate but unflattering article is a different problem from a false one.

IPSO in the United Kingdom and the Press Council in Australia handle accuracy and privacy complaints against member publishers, which is a route that does not require litigation.

Meta, YouTube, TikTok and X all allow an authorized representative to act on a principal's behalf, which means the principal need never appear in the correspondence.

What the job usually looks like from your side

You have been asked a version of the same question everyone asks: what is out there, how bad is it, and can any of it be dealt with. The instruction is often given in passing and expected back as something short. Meanwhile you cannot ask around internally without the asking itself becoming news, and you cannot commission a vendor without knowing what you are buying.

The material is almost never one item. It is a story that ran in one publication and was picked up in three markets, plus two aggregators, plus a Reddit thread, plus a set of images, plus something on a personal blog that no one has looked at in four years but which still ranks. Each of those sits under a different legal regime and a different set of rules. Treating them as one project with one point of contact is the only way it stays manageable for you.

The written Exposure Scan exists for exactly this moment. It gives you a document you can read before you decide anything, showing what is ranking, what is behind it, what each item would realistically take and what is not worth pursuing. It is free, it is yours to keep, and nothing in it needs translating before it goes upward.

What do the law and press rules say about published articles?

Published journalism carries strong protection in every jurisdiction we work in, and the correct question is never whether an article can be forced down but whether a lawful route reaches it at all. Two things are usually true at once. There is a data protection route in Europe and the United Kingdom, built on the right to erasure under GDPR Article 17, that can change what a search for a person's name returns without the article being deleted. There is a standards route, through a publisher's own corrections policy or a press regulator, that costs nothing to use and does not require litigation.

Defamation is the last resort and the slowest. The UK Defamation Act 2013 serious harm test means a claim has to be false, factual and damaging, and where a principal is genuinely a public figure the practical work is far more often privacy, personal data and search visibility than defamation. We will tell you which of those you are actually looking at before anyone is contacted, because in this category the wrong approach creates a second article.

What we need from you to start

To run the scan, links or search terms are enough. You do not need to gather anything about the principal, and nothing sensitive is required to get the written picture back.

If we move to live work, the list is short and predictable. Written authority from someone entitled to act for the principal or the engaging entity. Confirmation of which entity is contracting. Confirmation of which personal details are accurate and which are not, since nobody can assert that an address is a home address without being told. For a factual accuracy point, the documents that show what is wrong, which is often a court record, a company filing or correspondence. For images, confirmation of who took them and whether any consent was ever given.

We will also ask what has already been tried, including any approach to a journalist or editor. Prior contact changes what is possible next, and a well meant email from the principal to a reporter is something we need to know about before anyone writes to that publication.

Timelines and what usually happens first

The scan comes back within a few business days as a written document with a short summary at the front that you can forward or paraphrase. Nothing happens externally until you say so, which matters when the principal has not yet been told there is a scan.

After that, timelines depend on the route and on the publisher or platform involved, and they are set out in writing once the work is scoped. We never give a completion date and we do not promise outcomes. What you get instead is a running status at the level of detail you choose, from a line by line log you can forward to silence until something has actually changed.

Common mistakes that make this harder

The principal emailing the journalist directly. It is the most common one and the most costly. Anything sent to a reporter is on the record unless agreed otherwise in advance, and a defensive message becomes a follow up story or a screenshot in the piece.

A lawyer's letter sent early to a national publisher without an evidenced accuracy point. It hardens the position, and in the United Kingdom a letter that reads as an attempt to suppress reporting can itself become the subject of coverage.

Paying an operator who has offered to take a page down. In the private client space this is treated as an admission, and the same page tends to be reposted under a different domain.

Removing the principal's own posts, photographs or old profiles before the material is preserved. Those pages are frequently the evidence that shows what was published, when, and what the source actually was. Preserve first, then decide.

Waiting for a story to fade. Syndication and aggregation mean that the copies keep resolving into search long after the news cycle has ended, and the copies are usually the easier target.

How this works alongside counsel, PR and security

We are used to being the third or fourth adviser in the room and we are comfortable there. Where a law firm is already engaged, we take instruction from them on anything that could touch a claim, and we will happily be instructed through them so the work sits under privilege where that matters. Where a communications agency is handling the story, we tell them exactly which URLs we are pursuing so they are not briefing on a piece that is about to change.

Where there is a security team, personal data removals are usually their priority too, and the two workstreams share the same evidence. We can provide a straightforward record of what was published and what has been removed for their file.

We do not need to lead. Most of our private work is done quietly under other people's letterheads. Reporting goes to you and to whoever else you name, and nobody else.

Who makes first contact and what the 15-minute call covers

In most of these engagements you do. The principal is briefed after there is something concrete to brief on, which is usually the scan document. That is the normal order here and nobody will ask to speak to the principal before you are ready.

The 15-minute call is designed for someone who has to report upward. We ask what has been seen and what has been asked of you, then tell you what is realistically removable, what is not, and what could go wrong with each approach. You leave with the language you need to summarize it in a paragraph. Fees are discussed on the call and confirmed in writing after the scan.

Confidentiality is standard. We sign your NDA or provide ours, we never disclose client names, and everything we publish about our work is anonymized. Engagement through a family office or holding company is routine, and our family offices page and private client practice describe how that is normally structured.