The complete guide to removing personal information from the internet

Lock down your privacy settings

Your goal is to limit who can view your posts. On Facebook, go to the Basic Privacy Settings & Tools page and use the Privacy Checkup. For Twitter, go to the Safety and Security page to limit the visibility of your posts and stop people from looking you up via your email address or phone number. If you are on Instagram, go to its Privacy and Safety Center and set your account to “private.”

Don’t friend strangers

On social media profiles you’ve created for personal use, you should only friend people you know in real life.

This is because once you friend someone, that person has access to all the information, images, and your posts. They can also send harmful links through private messages that can affect you negatively.

Obviously, this tip doesn’t apply to sites like LinkedIn or dating sites, where the whole point is trying to meet new people—we’ll go into more detail on handling those sites below.

Don’t friend people twice

It’s important to never friend anyone twice: you will likely be friending a fake account. And there are tons of fake online accounts.

Scammers create duplicates of your friends’ accounts, hoping you won’t remember that you’ve already accepted a request from those individuals.

Once inside your friend group, these people have access to your private information and all your posts.

As such, if you get a friend request from a person you’re already friends with, be sure to report it. Don’t reflexively click “accept.” Always check to see if you’ve already friended someone.

Don’t share details that people can use to triangulate your passwords or security questions

Be careful sharing any intimate details of your life, like the names of your family members, because hackers can use this information to figure out things about you that they can use to access your accounts.

For example, if you list your mom under the “family members” section of your Facebook profile, and she uses her maiden name as part of her username, then cybercriminals now know your answer to the common security question “What’s your mother’s maiden name?”

That said, it’s a good idea to review your profile and remove online information that might compromise your security.

Consider using a password manager

If you hate trying to remember the passwords for all your accounts, think about using a password manager. These handy tools are a safe, privacy-conscious alternative to convenient social media logins as they can help prevent you from falling victim to identity theft and protect your browser history from hackers.

When you use Facebook, for example, to log into a website, Facebook gets the information about which third-party sites you use. This information then gets added to the profile Facebook uses to market to you.

Provide the bare minimum of info in your profile

Make sure you don’t enter any personally identifying information like your location, birth date, email address, or phone number.

If you’ve already filled out your profile with these items, you’ll need to remove your information. Often, this information is all a person needs to steal to commit identity theft.

Can’t delete an account? Enter fake dummy data

If you’ve used a service in the past and can’t figure out how to deactivate your account, filling out your profile with made-up information will ensure that no one can trace the account back to you. This is also a good practice for any services that are not well known or new, or that you’re not familiar with, because you never know what their internal data policies will be like and if they’re being careful or not. (The recent Parler hack that involved the publishing of all user data, including deleted posts, is an example of what can go wrong.)

Ask people to delete posts that contain your personal info

If someone has posted your private information online, there are several things you can do to remove your information. If the content is on social media, then it probably breaks the platform’s Terms of Service and you can flag it for removal.

If the content is on another type of site, you’ll need to do some research to identify the individual who has the authority to edit or delete it. Once you know whom to contact, you’ll need to email that person, explaining how the content has harmed you (like exposing you to identity theft) and asking him or her to take it down. You can also read Google’s removal policies to see if your content meets Google’s removal guidelines. Unfortunately there’s no simple way to remove personal info that you didn’t post.

Ask people to untag you in photos

Your goal is to remove online information that might reveal your address or your children’s school. To reduce the chances of this happening, you need to contact every single social media friend or follower and request that they untag you in all their photos.

Avoid online quizzes or games

You might be tempted to find out which Disney princess you are or which Hogwarts house you belong in, but you’re better off not knowing. These quizzes and games can be used by scammers and hackers to gather personal details about you (like the names of your pets or your favorite color), which they then use to guess your passwords. In one example, two Ukrainian cybercriminals created online quizzes to get over 60,000 Facebook users to install browser extensions that extracted their profile data, including their friends lists, to offshore servers.

Use Google’s security checkup

Use the Security checkup feature to see which, if any, third-party apps can access your account. This tool also lets you revoke these permissions.

Blur your house on Google Maps

To request blurring of an item (like your house, your car’s license plate, your street address, or a person’s face) in your home’s street view picture, follow these steps:

1. On your computer, open Google Maps and navigate to the street view of your house.
2. In the black box containing your address, click the three dots on the top right.
3. Select “Report a problem.”
4. In the window that pops up, select the items you want Google to blur.
5. Enter your email address in the box provided.
6. Click the reCAPTCHA box.
7. Click “Submit.”

Ask Google to remove your personal information from its search results

It’s always a challenge to remove information from the internet. But, if your sensitive information shows up in Google’s search results for your name, and you’ve tried asking the site owner to remove your information from the website, then you can ask Google to remove your information from the search results. See the Remove your personal information from Google page for information about what kinds of content it will take down and instructions for doing so.

Delete Google services you rarely use

These services may be collecting information, even if you’re not using them. To delete them and remove online information they’ve been collecting about you, you can use Google’s Delete a service feature.

Turn off location history

Follow these directions for desktop and mobile devices:

Delete your search history

Follow these instructions to erase your Google search history:

1. Go to the My Google Activity page.
2. Click “Delete activity by” in the left-side menu.
3. Select a time period you want to erase. (Choose “All Time and All Products” to delete your entire history.)
4. Click “Delete.”

Set up email accounts for different purposes

For example, you can use one account for your online shopping and video streaming accounts and another for your banking and other important accounts. This way, you not only avoid unwanted spam going to your main account, but you also reduce the risk of your financial accounts being compromised. Also, make sure each of these accounts has a strong, unique password. There’s no point in using separate email addresses if a hacker can access all of them using the same password, or a password that is only one or two characters different from the others.

Don’t send sensitive information via email

You should always assume that your emails are visible to people other than the recipient. As such, you need to be careful what kinds of information they contain.

Use a high-quality email provider that only uses encryption

Encryption makes it harder (but not impossible) for unauthorized people to read your emails. Most modern email providers, including Google and Outlook, require you to use an encrypted connection. For other providers, check on their policies. If encryption is not on by default, look for another service. You might also consider an extra-secure email provider, like ProtonMail or Mailbox.org.

Try not to use the same username you’ve used for other accounts

Someone could use this information to identify you.

Consider using a separate email address just for dating

This way, nobody can tie your other online activities to your dating profile.

Don’t use your real phone number when arranging a date

Instead, use a fake phone number. To create one, you can use Google Voice or an app like Burner, Hushed, or CoverMe.

Opt out of any location-tracking features

You don’t want any dating website to reveal your location to others.

Don’t post personal information that someone could use to guess your security questions

For example, don’t share any details about your wedding, birthday, or similar events—and remove personal info like this that you’ve already posted. If you have created a website to manage your wedding planning, evites, and RSVPs, make sure it’s password protected.

Don’t store sensitive files on your server

It’s not worth the risk, even if you think these files are in a “hidden” folder.

Make sure all your plugins and server software are up to date

Software updates usually include security patches. To avoid getting hacked, always use the latest versions. If you’re using a managed hosting provider, like WPEngine or Wix, make sure it automatically installs security updates, as well as offering SSL, backups, and network monitoring.

Request to opt out

Any program that sells your personal information should let you opt out of having your data sold—usually through a “do not sell my info” link on its homepage. However, if you’ve agreed to let a loyalty program share your information with another company (for example, a fulfillment partner), then this isn’t considered a “sale” of information because there is no exchange of money. So, just because a business claims to never sell your information does not mean it isn’t giving it away.

Enter the minimum amount of info required to sign up

When you are filling out a new account profile or other online form, be sure to only complete the required fields and include as few personal details as you can when doing so. The goal is to remove information from the internet that marketers can use to target you.

Consider using a dummy email address

Often, when you sign up for something that requires a valid email address, you are not only allowing that website to use your email address, you are also giving it permission to sell your email information to others. To keep your real email private, and to prevent it from generating any data about you, you need to set up a dummy account (also called a burner email account.)

Delete old apps you don’t use anymore

The more apps you have on your phone, the more likely you are to have your data stolen.

Don’t allow apps to access data they don’t need

When installing an app, make sure the permissions it asks you to grant make sense. For example, a solitaire app doesn’t need to access your contacts, your photos, or your microphone to work. If the permissions an app asks for don’t make sense, then you should uninstall it.

Only download apps from reputable websites

You’ll be a lot safer if you stick with the Google Play store and the Apple Store, depending on your device because these sites usually check the apps they sell for malware. This doesn’t mean you are 100% safe though, because malware still exists in mainstream apps downloaded from these sites.

Don’t jailbreak your phone

Jailbreaking is a way of unlocking your phone that bypasses the security restrictions that limit what software programs can do on the device. The result is a phone that lets you do more, but at a high security cost.

Check the URL of every site you visit

Look for the https or a padlock image next to the URL to be sure it’s safe to use.

Never give out sensitive personal information on unsecured sites

It’s easy for cybercriminals to steal this information and use it against you.

Enter as little information as possible when you sign up

These companies already have access to an incredible amount of personal information about you. Don’t give them any more. Instead, you should only provide the minimum information required to complete a transaction.

Ask the company to delete your information

You can learn how to remove personal data in each company’s privacy policy. Amazon’s instructions are hard to find, but you can read about how to remove your information in this USA Today article.

Look for the word “control”

This will highlight the items you can change.

Check the date the privacy policy was published or updated

A recent policy is a sign that the company takes privacy seriously.

Search for “we collect” to learn what information the company collects about you

Be skeptical of businesses that access your location data. No one needs to know your location data, even if they claim to aggregate it.

Look for the term “such as,” “not limited to,” and “like”

Be skeptical of businesses that access your location data. No one needs to know your location data, even if they claim to aggregate it.

Google yourself to see who has your data

Before you can remove information from the internet, you need to know where it exists online. Therefore, the first step is to enter your full name in a search engine to see what kinds of results show up on the first few pages. This will show you who has your information.

Search with modifiers

Search for your name in combination with another identifier. For example, Jane Doe Company X or Jane Doe San Diego. This will give you a wider variety of results, especially if you have a popular name.

Opt out of people-search sites

Once you’ve found the top sites selling your data, you need to opt out to remove your information. There are hundreds of sites that sell your information, so you’re not getting rid of all risk with this step. But, at least you are getting at the low-hanging fruit. For step-by-step instructions on how to get these companies to remove your personal data, see our article How to remove yourself from the top people-search sites. If this task is too onerous to tackle alone, we offer several privacy products that do all the work for you.

Monitor sites for new instances of your data

Getting a site to remove personal info isn’t as easy as it sounds. Data-broker sites will often re-add your personal data whenever they find a new public record about you online. Therefore, you need to keep searching for your name online to verify that the information you want deleted remains gone from these broker sites.

Check if your personal information was involved in a data breach

You can use our Privacy Pro product to see if your data has been exposed online.

Use two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication means requiring another factor beyond a password—like a passcode you must enter to finish logging in. This extra step makes it harder for people to access your accounts, even if they already know your username and password.

Create strong and unique passwords

Let’s face it. It’s much easier to just use the same password for every account.

However, for your online accounts this can create a real security nightmare if your password is ever compromised because once someone has your password, that person now has access to all your accounts—and all the personal data they contain.

The best way to protect your data is to use a password manager, which will create robust, new passwords for every site, and, most importantly, remember them all for you. It’s also a good idea to select password-reset questions that aren’t traceable using breached data or people-search site information.

Reduce the amount of data that is available about you online in other places

This way, nobody can build a very comprehensive profile about you.

Remove your information from the data-brokers that the DMV sells it to

One of the biggest buyers of DMV information is Acxiom. To request deletion from their database, see their opt-out page.