Will deleting my social media accounts remove all my data from the internet?

Deleting your social media accounts will remove the profiles you've created and any content you've shared through those accounts, but it won't erase all your information from the internet. The content others have posted and tagged you in or images in which your name was mentioned will all stay. To remove all information about yourself from social media, you will need to contact all the individuals who have ever used them online or site administrators to request the removal of this type of content. We won't say this is nearly impossible, but for sure it's not easy.

Can I remove my email addresses from the internet?

To entirely remove your email address from the internet, you should, for a start, delete or deactivate all the accounts associated with that email. However, if third parties have been sharing or publishing your email without your knowledge, this task becomes much more challenging. Regularly updating your email address credentials and using alternative addresses for different purposes may be the most effective way to protect the privacy of your email address online.

What if a website or a social media platform refuses to delete my infaccount?

If a social media platform, or any other website refuses to delete your account or your online information, it's a good idea to review their privacy policy to better understand your rights. Depending on your jurisdiction, privacy laws such as GDPR or CCPA may protect your right to demand the removal of your personal or sensitive data. If applicable and necessary, remind the site or platform of their legal obligations. If they still don't comply, seeking legal help may be necessary.

How to Remove Yourself from the Internet in 2024: Full Steps

Your data is big business, though it’s one where you will never see any profit. Data brokers collect your data from a variety of predominantly online sources and resell it to interested parties. It’s used to check your eligibility for housing, by employers interested in your background, or by advertisers trying to sell you things.

Trying to remove yourself from the internet is tricky, but there’s a growing range of third-party services that can help you get a headstart. Alternatively, those with time on their hands can try to do it themselves. In either case, we’ll help you find the right solution, and explore whether it’s truly possible to remove your digital footprint.

In the meantime, you can stop further data being collected by making use of technology like VPNs, ad-blockers, and private search engines. Used together, these are effective at keeping personal information and online activity private.

How to remove yourself from the internet

The most efficient way to start removing yourself from the internet is by using a dedicated data removal service. We’ve summarized the best of what’s available below.

Best services to remove yourself from the internet:

Incogni - The best option to remove yourself from the internet. Contacts more than 180 data brokers on your behalf and offers great value for money.
DeleteMe - Contacts search engines as well as hundreds of data brokers with requests to remove your data.
Privacy Bee - Removes your data from data brokers, people search sites, and mass marketers. Great all-in-one privacy service.

Data aggregation – can you stop it?

It’s easy to disregard the importance of revealing things like your shoe size or shampoo preference online. After all, what use is that to anyone? The dangers to privacy arise when all of these disparate pieces of information are aggregated to create individual profiles. These profiles are extremely valuable to everyone from advertisers to government agencies.

Different countries have different rules as to how personal information gathered online should be managed. The US has traditionally been rather lax in its restrictions, though this began to change in 2018 with the introduction of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). This was updated two years later by the the California Privacy Rights Act, which came into force in 2024.

This gave consumers additional rights – such as being able to limit how companies disclosed personal information. Other states have followed California’s lead. Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, and Utah all implemented comprehensive privacy laws in 2024.

Countries in the EU offer their citizens some protections under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). According to the European Commission, the GDPR gives individuals "the right to ask for their data to be deleted.” Organisations have an obligation to do so, except when the data is needed to "exercise the right of freedom of expression,” for "reasons of public interest,” or when they’re legally required to keep it.

Although the UK has left the EU, the GDPR has been kept in UK law as the UK GDPR. However, the Information Commissioner's Office says that the UK has the "independence to keep the framework under review." There is already significant pressure to erode UK citizens' rights with the introduction of reforms.

As of 2024, companies operating in Switzerland must abide by the New Federal Act on Data Protection (nFADP). This improves on the existing Data Protection Act and grants Swiss citizens the "right to be forgotten.” This allows them to request that personal data is erased.

While those living in the above countries and US states have the unique opportunity to stop their data from being used without their permission, it's worth noting that people in other countries have little control over their data once it's been harvested. The data removal services we discuss below only operate in the countries -- or states -- with privacy laws that allow them to legally make removal requests.

Criteria for choosing the best online data removal services

Data brokers don’t really want to give up your personal information, which makes it all the more important to find a data removal service that's persistent. It should also meet the following criteria:

Contact with the major data brokers
Value for money
Extra features
Free trial period
Global scope

The best online data removal tools

Trying to manually remove your data is an arduous task – one that few people have the time and patience to do. With this in mind, we’ve selected the best data removal tools that will do the hard work for you.

1. Incogni
Editor's Choice | December 2024

Incogni takes care of the tedious work of contacting individual data brokers with data removal requests, and then subsequently chasing them up. It’s a great value service that’s easy for anyone to use.

Pricing
- 1 month: $12.99/mth
- 12 months: $6.49/mth
  50% OFF
Pros
- Affordable price
- No long-term contract
- Easy to use service
- Owned by Surfshark – a trustworthy company
- Works with data brokers in US, Canada, EU & UK
Cons
- More information on removed data would be nice

Incogni is a data removal service introduced by VPN stalwarts, Surfshark. It contacts relevant data brokers on your behalf and requests the deletion of any of your personal data. It then checks back at a later date and resubmits removal requests if necessary. Overall, it’s a great service that could potentially save you hundreds of hours’ worth of effort.

Getting started

Setup is straightforward: fill out a form with your personal and address information, sign a power of attorney document, confirm your email, and let the service get to work.

Incogni requires some personal information.

At this point, you may be wondering about whether signing a power of attorney form is sensible. While it does indeed sound drastic, its scope is severely limited.

The Incogni authorization form. In essence, it says that:

1. Incogni is authorized to contact data brokers and request them to remove any data they have about you.

2. If the data brokers refuse to comply, Incogni can inform local data protection agencies about it in the form of a complaint.

3. Power of Attorney is only valid until Incogni receives confirmation from the data broker that they removed (or didn’t find) your data. It automatically loses any power once it’s done.

As you won’t be making removal requests yourself, the power of attorney is a way for Incogni to prove that its requests are legitimate, and that contacted companies are not putting themselves in danger by complying.

Once you’re set up, Incogni uses an algorithm to predict how likely it is that individual data brokers have your data. It then begins issuing data removal requests to those with a high probability. These might include data brokers, marketing brokers, recruitment data brokers, risk mitigation brokers, people-search brokers, financial information brokers, and health information data brokers.

You can see exactly what’s happening via the Inogni dashboard. This shows the number of requests sent, the number of requests in progress, and the number of requests completed.

A graphical representation of Incogni's progress.

There’s also a “detailed view” page where you can see which companies Incogni have contacted with data removal requests. There’s also information about what particular companies do, and how they use the data they gather.

For each company contacted, Incogni provides a data sensitivity rating of between one and ten. This calculation is based on how sensitive the type of data collected by each broker is. For example, a company that collects Social Security Numbers has a higher rating than one that only collects names and ages.

In our case, the marketing company, Scraping Robot, is given a 10/10 data sensitivity rating. It claims to obtain client data from almost any website on the internet.

Incogni lists the companies that it's contacted.

How long does data removal take?

While some companies respond quickly, others can take up to a month – or longer. To comply with GDPR or CCPA regulations they should process requests within a 30 or 45-day period respectively.

In our tests, some requests were completed within a week, while others exceeded the time limit. Incogni says that it is in contact with these latter companies, and will not leave the individual requests unresolved.

Occasionally a company might get in touch directly via email without reference to Incogni. When this happens, Incogni recommends a stock reply of:

“Please direct all of your communication to Surfshark. They have my consent to manage the data removal process.” and cc’ing “[email protected].” Alternatively, you can email Incogni customer support directly and ask for help.

Following completion, Incogni says that it checks back approximately every three months to ensure that the same personal information isn’t listed again.

Availability and price

Legislation such as the European GDPR and the Californian CCPA mean that data brokers operating in their jurisdiction must comply with data removal requests. Incogni says that legal restrictions – or rather, the lack of them – means its service is currently only available for residents in the US, UK, Canada, Switzerland, and the EU.

You can choose to subscribe on a month-by-month basis or for a year. The former will cost you $12.99, while for the latter, it’s $77.88. Incogni offers a 30-day money-back guarantee period, enabling you to try the service risk-free.