Hi,
I promise I have no unethical intentions with this post. And forgive the cheesy stock photo; I wasn't sure what to put there.
Avoiding specifics, a friend of mine has a physically-distant, yet emotionally-close, family member go silent for no apparent reason. This person has a history of mental illness and dissapearing from time to time, but it's been a year, and my friend is worried. The family member doesn't have much of a social media presence, and we don't know anyone who could check on them in-person. Right now I only know their name and a vague idea of their location (which is in the United States).
Here's my question (and some followup questions):
How can I find any information about their existence online?
Are there any public government records I could search through?
I know there's a ton of advertising data collected by phones somewhere out there. Could that be useful in some way?
NOT HOW IT WORKS