At the heart of modern people tracing in the UK lies access to rich, accurate, and continuously updated data. Two of the most powerful data sources available for this purpose are the credit reference agencies Experian and Equifax. These organisations maintain vast datasets on the UK population, collected from a wide variety of financial, utility, and public records. Their primary function is to assess consumer creditworthiness, but the underlying data also provides a highly effective foundation for tracing individuals—particularly those who may have moved or are actively avoiding contact.

When a person applies for credit, opens a utility account, takes out a mobile phone contract, or registers to vote, their information is updated across credit reference agency systems. This means that if an individual moves house and subsequently opens a new financial account or signs a new tenancy agreement, that change is often reflected in CRA data—sometimes within as little as 30 days. This dynamic, transactional nature of the data makes it far more current and reliable than static public records or online searches, and it enables professional tracers to build a clearer, more recent picture of a subject’s whereabouts.

At TraceGO, we securely access selected CRA data under lawful basis and use it as one of the principal tools in verifying a subject’s most likely current residential address. We do not rely solely on one data point; instead, we analyse address activity patterns, indicators of occupancy, and recency of data updates to form a qualified view of where the subject is most likely living. Our team of tracing analysts then manually reviews and cross-validates this data against other sources to ensure it is suitable for legal use, such as process serving or debt enforcement.

However, credit agency data alone is not always conclusive. For this reason, TraceGO employs a layered data methodology. This means combining credit bureau data with a wide array of secondary and supplementary data points to corroborate and enhance trace accuracy. These may include data from the edited electoral roll (EER), which confirms voter registration at a property; telephone and utility account data, which indicates fresh connections or service usage at a new address; and other forms of consented consumer data, such as marketing and lifestyle databases that show transactional behaviour at specific addresses.

Our team may also utilise property ownership and Land Registry information, particularly when dealing with high-value legal claims or probate-related tracing. This is especially useful in complex or evasive cases, where property links or indirect associations can help establish a subject’s true location. Importantly, every data source used is fully GDPR-compliant and accessed only for legitimate, lawful purposes such as debt recovery, legal proceedings, or estate administration.

The true strength of TraceGO’s tracing model lies not only in the quality of data accessed, but in how it is used. We do not offer automated outputs or rely on unsupervised data scraping. Instead, each trace is carefully handled by a trained human analyst who understands how to interpret and cross-reference layered data intelligently and ethically. This expert oversight ensures that our results are not just data-driven—but legally robust and practically useful for our clients, whether they are landlords, legal firms, debt recovery professionals, or private individuals acting within their rights.

By fusing industry-grade credit reference data with broader investigative intelligence, TraceGO delivers verified tracing results with exceptional reliability. This multi-source, manually reviewed approach reduces the risk of error, avoids misidentification, and ensures that every address we provide is suitable for immediate legal, enforcement, or recovery action.