How to Disappear Online: Tips to Erase Your Digital Footprint

Using the Internet is like walking on a stretch of desertland; you are bound to leave a trail of digital footprints. If you have ever visited a website, sent an email, or filled out an online form, chances are you have a digital footprint that can be used to track your online activities and devices. 

Alarmingly, the information available about you on the Internet often goes beyond what you have shared or are comfortable with. This has reasonably led to growing concerns about online privacy and the desire of some people to “disappear” or erase themselves from the Internet. Erasing your digital footprint can be a daunting task, but it is not impossible.

Your Digital Footprint

Your digital footprint refers to all the information you intentionally or unintentionally leave behind while using the Internet. These include information from your social media profile and posts, email newsletter subscriptions, online shopping, transaction history, customer reviews, location data, search histories, and published blogs. 

Your digital footprint can be active or passive. It is known as an active digital footprint when you intentionally share personal information, such as on social media posts and comments. However, you may not always be aware that you are sharing information; this is known as a passive digital footprint. For example, by setting cookies on your device, websites can monitor your activities, such as the frequency of your visits, your IP address, and location, and apps can gather similar data without your knowledge.

Once you give an organization access to your data, they may sell it or distribute it to other organizations, such as data brokers. To make matters worse, a data breach may also expose your sensitive information. Ultimately, data from your digital footprint is used by advertisers to glean people’s usage patterns and create more targeted ads, or more sinisterly, by cybercriminals for all sorts of nefarious reasons, such as impersonation and theft.

Why People Want to Disappear Online

While having a digital footprint can have advantages, such as improving your visibility online, which can, in turn, open you up to many opportunities, the privacy and safety concerns associated with Internet use can push people to want to erase their Internet presence. There are so many reasons why people may wish to disappear online, including:

• Privacy Concerns: The Internet can be a scary place when it comes to privacy. There is so much that could go wrong when your data is exposed to individuals or companies that use, sell, or share any of your data without your knowledge or express permission. You could be exposed to identity theft, system viruses, corporate or government surveillance, theft of financial or intellectual property, to name a few.
• Escaping Harassment: There are so many harassment issues that can come out of having a digital footprint. Foremost is cyberbullying, which is when one or more individuals of a similar age repeatedly, purposefully, and persistently harass someone, particularly a minor, online or through digital means. Cyberbullying can come in several forms, including doxing, cyberstalking, fraping, sexting, and online harassment. All of which can have damaging effects on a person.
• Avoiding Marketing Tracking: Tracking refers to the gathering of user information by websites and online services they use. This information is typically used to deliver tailored content and enhance the user experience. However, it can also be used to monitor user activity on other websites and services, generating a comprehensive profile of their online habits. This is invaluable for advertisers, as such, many companies - Internet Service Providers, websites, and social media platforms are incentivised to track users across the Internet and sell their data to these advertisers. 
• Wanting a Fresh Start:Ever looked at your timeline and just wanted to delete that social media platform and start all over again? Well, it is very reasonable to want to start afresh on the Internet. Maybe you are tired of the weird and unwanted ads or have had a bad experience with privacy or cyberbullying, and you just want to press the reset button. If you are attempting to get into a school or a company and don't want them to look up your existing online identity, you may also need to start over.

The Reality of “Disappearing” Online

While completely erasing yourself online is nearly impossible, you can take steps that can minimize your online presence and make it harder for data brokers to get your information and sell it to the highest bidders. There is not a single button you can press that will delete your digital footprint. The reality is that getting rid of your data can be a tedious process that takes time. In many cases, simply deleting an account does not mean your information is completely gone from the Internet, and using incognito mode on your browser also does not solve your problem. 

Even when you successfully get your information removed from a website, it is also possible that your data has already been replicated in several other places. There are also third-party archives that complicate the removal process.

Step-by-Step Challenge: How to Reduce Your Digital Footprint

Here are some practical ways you can remove or limit your information from the Internet:

Searching Yourself Online to Identify Data

You can use search engines, like Google, by searching your name, including previous and current names if you have changed them. You can get an idea of what information about you is publicly accessible by looking through the search engine results. You can also set up Google Alerts for your name.

Deleting or Deactivating Social Media Accounts

You may also delete or deactivate social media accounts you no longer need or do not want others to see. You can find the delete or deactivation option in the settings of any social media platform. You may first request your data to see what they have on you before deleting.

Contacting Websites to Remove Personal Information

You could get in touch with the site administrator of any websites, blogs, and forums to ask them to take down any results that portray you negatively. If these administrators refuse to remove your information, you may contact the search engine, like Google or Bing, provided it meets their criteria for removal.

Opting Out of Data Broker Databases

Data brokers are individuals or companies that gather, compile, and sell enormous volumes of personal data to marketers, other companies, and governmental organizations. They can collect your information from public records, credit card companies, retailers, mobile apps, and websites. You can either sign up for an automated data broker opt-out service or manually search for your listings and follow the broker's opt-out and data deletion procedure to have your information removed from data broker websites.

Managing Browser Cookies and Tracking Settings

You may tweak the privacy and tracking settings on your browser to get some level of protection while surfing the Internet. You can clear cookies, block all third-party cookies, block trackers, turn off site-suggested ads, and turn on advanced levels of protection on your browser.  You may also consider using privacy-focused browsers like Brave, Tor Browser, or Firefox.

Using Privacy-Focused Tools (VPNs, Encrypted Messaging)

By encrypting your Internet connection and concealing your IP address, a virtual private network (VPN) makes it more difficult for outside parties to monitor your online activities and get information such as your location. There are numerous VPN service providers, including NordVPN, ExpressVPN, SurfShark, and Proton VPN, that you can try.

Creating New Habits to Stay Private

Always be cautious online. Before disclosing your location, vacation plans, or other private information on social media, give it some thought. Don't include your email address or phone number in your bio on social networking. Always verify that you are on a safe website by looking for a URL that begins with https:// instead of https://. 

Do not use the same password for more than one online account. If you visit a website often, do not remain logged in on a tab in your browser, as it leaves you vulnerable to possible attacks. Never download or open any dubious attachments from emails or websites. Last but not least, make an effort to stay on the most recent versions of your device, whether it runs Android, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS, or Linux.

Tools and Services That Can Help

There are several data broker removal services, such as DeleteMe and Incogni, that can act on your behalf and request that your data be removed from thousands of websites on the Internet. These services typically scan the Internet for information that may be related to you and get it taken down en masse. This saves you the time and stress of manually looking for your information and then requesting its removal. 

However, most of these services use a subscription model, which might become expensive when you need to continuously scan the Internet for your information. This is because they do not prevent these companies from gathering your data in the first place. They also cannot guarantee the deletion of one hundred percent of your information. There is also the issue where they delete data of someone with a similar name, mistakenly thinking it is yours.