Removing this data from the Internet helps minimize the risk of misuse. But how to do it?
With the omnipresence ofInternet today, digital life is, for some, just as important, sometimes more, than “real” life. Over time, it may happen that some information about you ends up on the web without your wanting it, such as yours physical address.
Seeing personal information on the web is unfortunately very common
Deleting personal data from the Internet takes time and is unfortunately not always efficient. Please be patient and keep in mind that it may not be possible to permanently delete your information. And unsubscribing from the web has not only advantages.
Either way, if you want to remove your physical address, for example, start by going around your social networks and deleting your address on each one. If this is not possible, to be really sure, you will have to go through the cancellation of the account in question. Some platforms allow you to hide this or that information, but since it exists in the platform’s database, you are not immune to a leak and the information would end up in the wild. Even more difficult to remove. You can also enter a fake physical address, for example. It’s effective. Also look at your blogs and other personal sites and the information you share.
Also be careful with the apps on your phone or tablet. Many are collecting too much data. And it is always possible that these, once compiled, will be shared, voluntarily or not. Pay attention to the permissions of your app, carefully read the terms of use, look at the privacy settings. If in doubt, again, you should definitely delete your account – uninstalling the app is not enough -.
To make them disappear is often an obstacle course
If a site has published personal information about you, you can contact the site administrator and ask them to delete this information. A model letter is available on the CNIL website. The site operator then has one month to respond to your request. After this period, you can send a complaint to the CNIL. Attach a copy of the letter you sent to the site manager and any response from him to your complaint.
If you decline, you can submit a legal delisting request to Google, Bing, and others. The two search giants rarely refuse to collaborate, but the procedure can take time, the result is never guaranteed and above all only the SEO is removed. Your data remains existing on the sites in question.
Surfshark VPN offers a dedicated tool, Incogni
There are quite a few services today that do this job for you, more or less automatically. Surfshark VPN, for example, offers Incognito. This tool maintains an up-to-date list of brokers who may collect your personal information and use it for a wide variety of purposes. The service then takes care of generating unsubscribe requests to make your information disappear. And even when data is deleted, deletion requests are sent regularly to prevent data from reappearing. Users, on the other hand, can follow the whole process: the databases involved, the requests transmitted, the ones that were successful, etc. – on their incognito dashboard.
Currently it is possible to use the service for € 5.79 per month with an annual subscription (50% discount).