Did you know? Under Article 17 of the UK GDPR, individuals can request the right to have their personal data erased. This is also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’.
The surge in requests to delete personal data from the internet has become a common feat in today’s digital world. There has been a staggering 60-fold jump from 2 zettabytes of data generation in 2010 to an estimated 120 zettabytes today, according to the World Economic Forum. This is because thousands of companies are collecting, aggregating, and trading your personal data without you knowing anything about it.
Search engine giants Google And Bing received more than a million ‘right to be forgotten’ requests between 2015 and 2021, figures have revealed.
But removing your personal data from the internet isn’t as straightforward as you think – you need the right tools and expertise. Why? Because according to Incogni, it would take the average person 304 hours to manually complete all the individual data removal requests needed to secure their privacy. Incogni does this all for you automatically.
Not sure where to start? Take a look at the three steps you need to take to delete your personal data
1. Remove all your data from Google and other search engines
In what was a breakthrough feature announced at the time, Google’s parent company Alphabet rolled out a system in 2022 that allowed people to remove personal information from Google’s search results.
This meant that people who didn’t want their details being searchable on Google could opt for their personal data to be deleted.
Take a look at Incogni’s handy guide which gives you step-by-step instructions on how to erase your personal data including names, photos and professional details from the internet.
2. Delete your social media accounts
The vast majority of our personal data that exists on the internet is thanks to the meteoric rise of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram Twitter, TikTok and Linkedin among others. If you want to delete personal data from the internet, you must ensure that you have deactivated and deleted all old and new social media accounts. Manually deleting posts and photos from social media accounts is recommended too. Although time-consuming, ensuring that you have deleted everything from social media accounts means your data won’t come up in searches.
3. Talk to experts
Deleting personal information from the internet is a serious task that needs expertise – it’s not something that can be achieved by deleting accounts here and there. Incogni, the Personal Information Removal Service, can help you take back control of your data, reduce spam, and prevent scam attacks by opting you out of their databases automatically.
Why millions of people are vulnerable to data thefts is because data brokers create shadow profiles on you that include a frightening amount of personal details. These insights are then used by scammers, total strangers, insurance companies, banks, businesses, and even the government.
Incogni rechecks with data brokers about starting to collect removed people’s data every three months which makes an annual plan the best option to keep your information safe.
This means complete strangers have access to personal information such as home addresses, contact details, members of your family, and much more.
To delete your personal data from the internet, here are the three steps you need to take:
- Get started – Create an Incogni account and tell them whose personal data we’ll be requesting to remove.
- Grant them the right to work for you
- Relax and watch them work
