How to Remove Your Information from Internet: 2026 Guide

As people spend more time on social media or other forms of the Internet, the amount of shared identifiable information rises persistently. Online purchases, tweets, comments, and even search results collectively contribute to an individual’s digital ID.

Those who consider privacy an issue also agree that one must learn how to delete their data from the internet. Keep reading to find out how to limit how much of your data is on the World Wide Web and become more private.

How to Remove Personal Information from the Internet

Of course, the best approach to establishing privacy on the World Wide Web is to make as many of these details private as possible. Unless you want to be entirely anonymous, your information is out there, even if you have surrendered your phone number or email to some sites.

While it is impossible to try to erase yourself from the workings of the web, there are ways to limit the amount of information available online about you.

1. Delete Unused Accounts and Software

Eventually, you will have a lot of online accounts and some software you will not need. These old accounts and applications may still retain your data and, thus, pose a security threat. These are some of the significant steps you can follow to ensure your data is secure:

Identify and delete old email, online shopping, and social media accounts: Write down all your accounts and then try to look at the accounts you are no longer using. To delete your account, travel to the respective platform and adhere to the management’s guidelines on account deletion.
Remove your information: If you can’t delete an account, precise all your data, such as your billing address and credit card number. It will help minimize your online footprint and thus mitigate the consequences of a data leak.
Uninstall unnecessary apps from your devices: Some of these applications are unnecessarily installed and occupy space in the storage system, while others can be outdated, posing various security threats. To minimise the risks of putting one’s personal information at the mercy of hackers, one needs to uninstall the applications one no longer uses from their devices. And a tip for you: before you install a new app, always go through its permissions to ensure they are not pulling more than necessary.

2. Review Privacy Settings on Social Media Accounts

Regarding the data stored, most social media platforms keep information about you. It is necessary to regulate who can view the entered information and its usage by changing the privacy settings of your profile. Here is what you should do:

Review and adjust privacy settings: You should check the privacy settings on every social networking site and account you use. Limit your news feed, post viewers, and friends list, and tag friends based on the level of exposure that makes you most comfortable. Some of the dangerous things that you should not post on your profile include your address or phone number, and thus, it is advisable to have a few trusted friends only to be able to see your profile.
Be mindful of what you share: Whenever you type something, stop and think about it before you submit it to the community. Do not trust any detail someone gives you; hackers could use it against you even if it seems unimportant. Avoid sharing information about where you are, what you are doing, or with whom you are associated.
Be careful about posting photos: Photographs can capture many things about you and your conduct. Do not post pictures with characteristics that could reveal your identity or some of the places you often visit. Another tip is to restrict the visibility of the photos posted on social sites, which means that only specific people should be allowed to see your uploaded images because some of them can violate your right to privacy or even endanger your life.

3. Remove Your Information from Google Search Results

People typically choose Google when searching for information on anyone or anything. If your personal information is indexed, anyone could find it in seconds. Erasing your data and staying away from Google search improves individual rights protection and minimises misuse. Here is how users can attain it.

Delete your information from Google: There is an online form where one can submit a request to delete their details from Google. Try to adhere to the instructions below to remove unwanted text or any photo from the website listed in Google. You can also request to erase certain personally identifiable information vulnerable to doxing.
Monitor search results: Similarly, check Google for your name, company name, or information at least once a week. If additional cases of your data appear online, go through this process again to delete that data.

4. Request Removal from Third-Party Websites and Data Brokers

Information is available to anyone willing to pay since personal information is bought and sold by third parties or data brokers who compile it. Once again, to prevent your privacy from being violated, asking to be removed from these sites minimises one’s risk of being a victim of identity theft. Here are a few measures that you can take.

Make requests to remove your information from data brokers: Find out which websites and data brokers possess your data and reach out to them. Make requests to remove your information from data brokers: Find out which websites and data brokers possess your data and contact them. Sometimes, the website has forms or specific procedures that data brokers and websites can use. Ensure that you provide as much information as possible about the information that you seek to have removed, such as pictures or links.
Use automated removal services: For the best results, consider using automated tools or seeking the services of professionals from privacy protection companies. These services can also look for your personal information on data brokers’ lists, contact different data brokers, and request the elimination of the information for you.
Monitor for reappearances: Data brokers can re-upload your data even after you have managed to delete your information from their database. They should continue observing the Internet for the detective’s appearance. It is advisable to set an alert for easy handling of the issue in case the data goes viral again.

5. Optimize Browser Privacy Settings and Use Anti-tracking Tools

When you use a web browser, the browser knows a lot about the activity you perform on the Internet and can be used to track and profile you. Adjusting your browser and using anti-tracking tools will help you prevent the amount of data collected on you. Here’s how you can achieve that.

Adjust your browser privacy settings:

Block third-party cookies.
Do not allow the site to record your activity.
Don’t allow sites to customize ads.

These settings help minimize the collection of personal details about you as you surf the internet.

Clear your browsing history: Browsing history cleaners help ensure you do not leave any traces of your visits to specific websites. They can also help stop websites and advertisers from building detailed profiles of your internet activity. Always remember to delete cookies and caches containing private and other preferences.
Delete unused extensions: When it comes to privacy threats, one must ensure that browser extensions have access to your browser and can see a lot of your data, including browsing history and personal information. One can easily hack into their software and scoop this data. Uninstall any add-ons you don’t need or don’t find credible to prevent identity theft and enhance browser performance.
Use anti-tracking and privacy tools: You can also use apps that prevent internet cookies from tracking your activity. NordVPN has a proper tracker blocker function that prevents third-party internet trackers from accumulating information on you while on the internet.
Use a VPN: A VPN also provides an extra layer of security through connection encryption and uses a different IP address. NordVPN has an additional feature called Threat Protection Pro, which includes some plans and protects you from malware and phishing attacks, among other things, while browsing the internet.

6. Monitor and Protect Your Identity

Theft of identity and fraud are critical issues that may lead to drastic changes in your financial and personal status. You have to control your identity to prevent the misuse of your details to harm you or compromise your identity. Here’s what you can do:

Use identity monitoring services: These services notify you when someone uses or tries to use your identity. They also inform you about any activity you consider unlawful, such as opening new accounts in your name or changing your credit report. To understand where your stolen credentials might be bought and sold, it helps to know about the dark web. If you’re curious about how this hidden part of the internet operates, TorNews’ beginner’s guide to the dark web is a straightforward, non-technical explanation.
Make public records private: Find out how to limit the Items in the public domain, which includes court, property titles, and litigation records that are considered public domain. You may have to communicate with the organisations that make such records public and seek their permission to restrict your information.

7. Secure Your Online Accounts

To reduce the risks of your account information being available online, you must safeguard the accounts you still actively use. Here are the following measures that you can take to ensure that your accounts are highly secure.

Use strong, unique passwords: Establish the passwords using a combination of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. Avoid easily guessable phrases and words, system details such as birthdays and names, and frequently used words.
Try out a password manager: For people who have been advised to change multiple passwords but may find it difficult to remember all of them, software like NordPass assists by securely storing and managing passwords. NordVPN automatically creates passwords that are difficult to guess and stores them for you.
Enable two-factor authentication (2FA): 2FA is a form of security enhancement that involves using additional codes, such as phone or email, in addition to the password. The user’s security is dramatically enhanced, reducing the chances of unauthorised access even if someone discovers the password.
Regularly scan the dark web for your information: However, if you wish to implement measures to enhance security for your accounts, you can use several dark web monitoring alerts. For instance, NordVPN offers a Dark Web Monitor that continuously searches the Internet for any credentials linked to the email used during the registration process of NordVPN. Engaging with this feature will enable you to quickly come across credentials that have been exposed and thus act on them accordingly.

FAQ

How do I remove my personal information from the internet for free?

To erase your personal information online for free:

Find and remove your information from the main sites of data brokers.
Limit the availability of your profile across social networking sites and Google your name.
Inform the contact websites and request that they delete undesirable data or information that may be inconvenient or too sensitive.

How much does removing your name from the internet cost?

If you try to delete your name on the Internet, you can register your name on the search engine yourself without charge. You can also use a third-party service to do it, and they charge $7 to $25 per month, depending on the specifics and the amount of personal information they promise to delete.

What is the best website to remove personal information from the internet?

There are many removal services, and the best choice is to use Incogni by Surfshark. Incogni works with companies that collect and sell personal data and relies on data protection laws like GDPR and CCPA to force compliance with deletion requests.

After registration at Incogni, the service will initiate these requests on your behalf, which is more convenient than doing it yourself. Their service protects your data by constantly checking the data broker list so your information does not resurface.