Unbeknownst to many expats (and Swiss) personal information (home address / telephone number) can be easily found in a matter of seconds via an eAutoIndex search of your car's plate number. This can be done online or with apps that are readily available for smart phones (ie: iPhone).

For those not wishing to have this information available to the general public you are allowed by Swiss law to have it removed from prying eyes.

To make this easier (especially those that are "local language challenged") I've put together this list which contains documents (in pdf or online) that can be sent to the respected motor vehicle departments for de-registration from eAutoIndex. After applying there will be no confirmation that your plate number has been removed, that you will see yourself if you do a search of your own number (believe the database is updated weekly).

So below you'll find the different cantons with a link next to them that contains either the document itself (in pdf), a link to deregister online or no documents found "???" (red colored cantons). Since I don't speak Italian I was unable to find any documents for Ticino. My French is almost nonexistent but I was able to find a couple of them except Jura and Neuchatel. For Jura I found a document but not sure if it's the correct one, if someone can have a look at it to verify it I'll be very grateful.

(thanks go to MrVertigo for confirming Jura and finding Neuchatel, Baselstadt)


If anyone finds the correct documents for the red colored cantons or discovers a bad link please contact me and I'll update the list. thanks.


Aargau: (online)

Appenzell I.-Rh. ???

Appenzell A.-Rh.: (Link) Look under "Diverse / Antrag um Sperrung von Halterdaten..."

Bern: (pdf)

Basel-Landschaft: (pdf)

Baselstadt: (pdf sample letter)

Freiburg: (pdf)

Geneva: (pdf)

Glarus: (pdf)

Graubünden: (pdf)

Jura: (pdf)

Luzern: (pdf)

Neuchatel: (pdf)

Obwalden/Nidwalden: (pdf)

St. Gallen: (online)

Schaffhausen: (pdf)

Solothurn: ???

Schwyz: (pdf)

Thurgau: (pdf)

Ticino: ???

Uri: (pdf)

Vaud: (pdf)

Wallis: (pdf)

Zug: (pdf)

Zurich: (pdf)

Mentioned ages ago for Zurich STVA in Ironies of Data Protection (post 14)

Once you've submitted the form it doesn't take very long: I did it as soon as I found out that any Tom Dick and Hans could find out where I live.

Mind you, you can get UK details from the DVLA quite easily too (but for a charge of course).

joe public cant just say " i want the owner details for car reg xyz" and get them, unless they say they are a car park company and then pay the £2.50.

While I'm not going to avail myself of this - I went with the McNealy philosophy years ago as a matter of personal choice - this is a great collection of links for anyone who doesn't believe privacy is already dead. Thanks!

Scott McNealy? Not much on his Wikipedia page

Are the links and ideals you mentioned, well, private?

I'll guess what you mean anyway...

Opting out of this eAutoIndex would just make if more difficult for someone to find you, not impossible.
But why should I make it unnecessarily easy for folk to find me?

BTW, can I come and use your WiFi for my kiddie porn downloads? It's related to privacy.

Excellent. In less than a week my number sheild now shoes this result: "Das Suchergebnis ist negativ ausgefallen. Begründung: Das Kontrollschild ist nicht in Verkehr gesetzt, oder bei der gesuchten Person besteht eine Auskunftssperre."

:-)

I just noticed that the website had changed for Kanton Zürich which rendered the link invalid. I found the new location of the file and updated the link accordingly.

Hi,
You might want to review that link for VD:
It's says "annulation du permis de circulation" which basically means something like "cancel your driving rights = cancel your "carte grise" document"-

For Blocking personal information from eAutoIndex in Vaud it says:

"n the canton of Vaud, it is not possible to obtain the coordinates of a vehicle owner in a directory on the internet or via SMS.

SAN communicate the name and address of a person solely on written request and motivated, with a fee of CHF 20 .-.

However, the user may request confidentiality of their data, and in this case only the competent authorities have access."

Official link

Form:
http://www.vd.ch/fileadmin/user_uplo...1333_v1005.pdf

So if you see a family in a car with a Zurich registration in Spain, you know three things:

Approximate wealth level, Home address, and - nobody's home!

Very useful to thieves.

Hi Update again:
The new link is:
http://www.vd.ch/uploads/tx_vdfilesdb/1333_v1104.pdf
It's form 1333 there:
http://www.vd.ch/fr/themes/mobilite/...ination_page=2

Tempting as it may be to want to immediately block your personal info, take a minute first to decide if that's really what you want to do. There are certain advantages to having your personal details connected to your plate number.

For example, a few times when I've parked where I shouldn't have, private individuals and private security officers have paid me personal visits to tell me to please move so they won't need to have me towed. (i.e. when I inadvertently parked my motorcycle on private property) Had my details not been registered, my friendly visits would have instead been mega-CHF towing bills.