It vanished.
Usually it comes back.
This is genuinely alarming when it happens, and in most cases it is not a punishment and not something you did.
A panel is Google displaying a file it holds. When the panel goes, either the file went or Google stopped being confident enough to show it. Those are different problems.
Working out what happened
Search from three places before panicking
Signed out, a different device, and a phone. A surprising number of disappearances are not disappearances.
Search your name plus your city or company
If it appears there, a namesake has taken the plain name and your file is fine.
Check whether a page about you has gone
Think about what was published about you and open those links. A dead one is often the whole answer.
Ask whether anything about you changed recently
New job, new name, a site rebuild. If so, wait rather than making more changes.
Only then consider a penalty
And be honest about whether anybody created something on your behalf that should not have existed.
One: it is still there, you just cannot see it
Check first, before anything else. Search from a different device, signed out, in a private window, and on a phone as well as a computer.
Panels show and hide depending on the exact wording searched, the country you are in and the device. A panel that appears on your phone and not your laptop has not gone anywhere.
Two: a source it was leaning on went away
This is the most common real cause. A page it relied on was deleted, an old employer restructured their site, a publication moved its archive, or an encyclopedia entry was removed.
Take away enough of the supporting evidence and Google's confidence drops below the point where it will show anything. Nothing was penalised. The floor moved.
It usually comes back on its own once other sources catch up, or once the missing one is replaced by something comparable.
Three: your details changed everywhere at once
A rebrand, a name change, a new job announced across every profile in a week. You have just told the machine that a lot of the facts it was confident about are wrong.
It goes quiet while it works out which version is true. This one resolves itself, usually within a few months, and the worst thing to do is change everything again.
Four: a namesake overtook you
Somebody with your name got substantially more coverage, and Google now thinks the name means them. Your file may be perfectly intact and simply no longer the answer for that search.
Test it by searching your name with your city or your company. If a panel appears there, this is what happened.
Five: something was reported and removed
Rarest, and the only one that is genuinely a penalty. It happens where a record was manufactured, where a claim was made falsely, or where a legal removal applied.
If a record was fabricated by somebody working on your behalf, this is the outcome, and it is the reason nobody should be creating encyclopedia entries about you that do not deserve to exist.
More questions
Will it come back?
Usually, if the underlying material still exists. Weeks to months. It returns when Google is confident again, not on request.
Can I ask Google to restore it?
There is no restore request. Rebuilding the evidence is the only route, which is the same work as building one in the first place.
Did I cause this by redesigning my website?
Only if your site was carrying facts nothing else carried. If it was, that was a fragile position and worth fixing regardless.
It came back but with less information.
Normal. Google shows what it is confident about. As the sources recover, the detail returns.
If you want help with it
Three thousand dollars flat, half at the start and half only when there is something live to show you. Six to twelve months is the honest window, and about a third of the people who ask are told not to proceed.