How to remove personal information from the internet

Use Incogni to remove your personal information from the Internet.

Every aspect of our lives now exists on the internet, from social media accounts to online shopping to online banking and everything in between. It is more important than ever to control how each channel uses and distributes the personal information in your digital footprint.

Just like traveling in the real world, anywhere you go online leaves traces of where you were, called your digital footprint. Understanding the importance of your active digital footprint means you can take back control from third-party sites looking to make a quick profit from your sensitive information.

Your digital footprint can remain on the Internet forever, causing lasting damage to your reputation, financial data, and even your Internet-connected devices. Controlling your personal data and online presence as well as your online accounts can protect you from the possible malicious intentions of other Internet users, such as identity theft.

While strategically deploying your online presence ensures you have a spotless digital footprint, day-to-day use can still have undesirable consequences. Fortunately, you can clean up your digital position in search results and more with some awareness, behavioral changes, and electronic tools.

The first step to taking control of your sensitive data is to log everywhere you appear online by reviewing Google search engine results. Be your own advocate and ask them (professionally) to remove any content you no longer wish to be shown.

Additionally, use search engines to look for inactive social media accounts, activity on other sites on the dark web, instances of the same password being used, and outdated email accounts. Old accounts and poor account settings when shopping online are the leading causes of data breaches of sensitive information and online activities.

Requesting that you be removed from every website that contains and displays information about you can be tedious and time-consuming, but it is possible. Most websites must follow privacy policies and procedures to facilitate this process.

The next step is to face the daunting world of data brokers. Data broker websites collect all kinds of details about you, including your date of birth, address, phone number, IP address, and even browsing history (the latter is part of your passive digital footprint). This data is then sold to the highest bidder, resulting in targeted ads when things come to mind.

Unfortunately, these data brokers leak your information to more unsavory entities, such as those who commit identity theft, leading to an increase in spam calls and phishing scams. These nasty side effects can affect loan qualifications, health insurance prices, and even employment decisions.

Those annoying cookie opt-in notices on every web page are an important place to start controlling which websites can track your activity. Opting out of every website you visit will help slow down some of the tracking, but data brokers are ruthless and make protecting your digital footprint feel like a full-time job.

Protect your online privacy with Incogni tracking data deletion requests.

Incognito is not intimidated by the complex takedown process and puts the pressure on the data company instead of you. Plus, Incogni does the tedious and frustrating work of doing this for each channel so you don’t have to.

Incogni’s data removal service sends opt-out and deletion requests extremely quickly, giving data miners no chance to react and protect you. Likewise, Incogni ensures that your personal data is deleted and not made available in reference websites such as Whitepages, FastPeopleSearch and USPhoneBook.

Use Incogni to handle additional interactions when facing data brokers, such as denial appeals. Incogni restarts the process every few months to ensure your private information remains private so you enjoy ongoing protection.

If you’re here like us Apple Insider, you don’t have time to constantly monitor social media sites and react to how websites and online platforms use your personal information. Instead, partner with Incogni and let them do the heavy lifting, from dealing with data brokers to scanning social media platforms to protect you from identity theft or worse.

Protect your online privacy with ease.

Incogni tracks your digital footprint, requests opt-outs, advocates deletion of personal information, and helps request removal from pseudo-online services. Finally, there’s a solution that simplifies digital footprint management, simplifying your online privacy.