10 Best Ways to Hide Your Identity Online

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5 Steps to Removing Your Personal Information From the Internet

Here’s one way you can help reduce your chances of identity theft: remove your personal information from the internet.

And chances are, you have more personal information posted online than you think.

According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), consumers registered 1.4 million identity theft complaints in 2021, all part of a year where consumers reported losing $5.8 billion to fraud overall—a 70% increase over the year prior.

What fuels all this theft and fraud? Access to personal information.

Scammers and thieves can get a hold of personal information in several ways, such as through phishing attacks that lure you into handing it over, malware that steals it from your devices, by purchasing your information on dark web marketplaces, or as a result of information leaked in data breaches, just to name a few.

However, scammers and thieves have other resources to help them commit theft and fraud—data broker sites, places where personal information is posted online for practically anyone to see. Which makes removing your info from them so important, from both an identity and privacy standpoint.

What are data broker sites?

Think of data broker sites as huge repositories of personal information. Search your name and address online and you’ll see. You’ll likely find dozens of sites that turn up information about you, some of which offer a few pieces for free and others that offer far more information for a price.

Data brokers collect and then aggregate personal information from several sources, including:

• Your public records posted online.
• Information from social media accounts you keep public.
• The websites you visit and the smartphone apps you use.
• Along with retailers, who share information associated with your loyalty cards.

Data brokers also buy personal information from other data brokers. As a result, some data brokers have thousands of pieces of data for billions of individuals worldwide .

What could that look like? A broker may know how much you paid for your home, your education level, where you’ve lived over the years and who your lived with, your driving record, and possibly your political leanings. A broker may also know your favorite flavor of ice cream and your preferred over-the-counter allergy medicine thanks to information from loyalty cards. Further, they may also have health-related information from fitness apps. The amount of personal information can run that broadly, and that deeply.

With information at this potential level of detail, it’s no wonder that data brokers rake in an estimated at $200 billion U.S. dollars worldwide every year .

Who uses the personal information found on data broker sites?

On the legitimate side, it’s used by advertisers to create targeted ad campaigns. With information sold by data brokers, they can generate lists based on highly specific criteria, such as shopping histories, personal interests, and even political leanings as mentioned above. Likely without you being aware of it—and likely with no way to contest that information if it’s incorrect.

Other legitimate uses include using these sites for background checks. Law enforcement, reporters, and employers will use data brokers as a starting point for research because the leg work has largely been done for them. Namely, data brokers have aggregated a person’s information already, which is an otherwise time-consuming process.

If this seems a little shady, it’s still legal. As of now, the U.S. has no federal laws that regulate data brokers or require data them to remove personal information if requested. A few states, such as Nevada, Vermont, and California , have legislation in place aimed at protecting consumers . Meanwhile, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union has stricter rules about what information can be collected and what can be done with it. Still, the data broker economy thrives.

On the darker side, scammers and thieves use personal information for identity theft and fraud. With enough personal information gathered from enough sources, they can create a high-fidelity profile of their victims. One that gives them enough information to open new accounts in their name.

So, from the standpoint of both privacy and identity, cleaning up your personal information online makes a great deal of sense.

How to remove your personal information from the internet

Let’s review some ways you can remove your personal information from data brokers and other sources on the internet.

1. Request to remove data from data broker sites

The process starts with finding the sites that have your information. From there, you can request to have it removed. Yet as mentioned above, there are dozens and dozens of these sites. Knowing where to start is a challenge in of itself, as is manually making the requests once you have identified the sites that post and sell information about you.

Our Personal Data Cleanup can do the work for you. Personal Data Cleanup scans some of the riskiest data broker sites and shows you which ones are selling your personal info. It also provides guidance on how you can remove your data from those sites and can even manage the removal for you depending on your plan . ​ It also monitors those sites, so if your info gets posted again, you can request its removal again.

2. Limit the data Google collects

As of September 2022, Google accounts for just over 92% of search engine market share worldwide. Aside from being a search engine, Google offers a myriad of other services and applications, such as Gmail and Google Maps. While Google offers plenty of tools for productivity, travel, work, and play for free, they still come at a cost—the gathering and analysis of your personal information.

You can limit the data Google associates with you by removing your name from Google search results with a removal request . This will disable anyone online from getting any results if they search your name. (Note that this will not remove your information from the original sites and sources where it’s posted.) Moreover, Google collects all your browsing data continuously. You have the option to turn on “Auto Delete” in your privacy settings to ensure that the data is deleted regularly and help limit the amount of time your sensitive data stays vulnerable.

You can also occasionally delete your cookies or use your browser in incognito mode to prevent websites from being tracked back to you. Go to your Google Chrome settings to clear your browser and cookie history.

3. Delete old social media accounts and make the ones you keep private

As discussed above, data brokers can collect information from public social media profiles. You can minimize your presence on social media to the bare minimum. Make a list of the ones you use or have used in the past. If there are old accounts that you no longer use or websites that have gone by the wayside like Myspace or Tumblr, you may want to deactivate them or consider deleting them entirely.

For social media platforms that you still may use regularly, like Facebook and Instagram, consider adjusting your privacy settings to ensure that your personal information on these social media platforms is the bare minimum. For example, on Facebook you can lock your profile, while on Instagram you can stay private.

4. Remove personal info from other websites and blogs

If you’ve ever published articles, written blogs, or created any content online, it might be a good time to consider taking it down if it is no longer serving a purpose. Depending on what you’ve posted, you may have shared personal details about your life. Additionally, you might be mentioned by other people in various social media posts, articles, or blogs. It is worth reaching out to these people to request them to take down posts with sensitive information.

Social media and online articles that host your personal information are often used when businesses or hackers are doing “internet scrapes” to find better ways to use your targeted information. Asking your friends or third-party sites to remove that information can help protect your privacy.

5. Delete unused phone apps and restrict the settings for the ones you use

Another way you can tidy up your digital footprint online involves deleting all the unnecessary phone apps that you no longer need or use. Even when apps are not open or in use, they may be able to track personal information such as your real-time location and even your payment details if you have a paid subscription to the app.

Some apps even sell this data as it can be extremely advantageous to other companies, which they use to target certain consumer segments and profiles for advertising. Try to share as little information with apps as possible if you’re looking to minimize your online footprint, and provide them access to your photos, contacts, and location only on as-needed basis and only when the app is in use. Your phone’s app and location services settings will give you the tools to do it.

Online protection software can keep your personal information more private and secure

In addition to the steps above, comprehensive online protection software can keep you more private and minimize your risk of cybercrime. It can include:

• An unlimited VPN can create a private internet connection that makes your personal information much more difficult to collect and track .
• Identity monitoring can track several pieces of personal information and alert you if it’s found on the dark web.
• Identity theft coverage & restoration can help should the unfortunate happen, which covers you with $1 million for legal feels, travel expenses, and stolen funds reimbursement , plus provides further assistance from a licensed recovery pro to repair your identity and credit.
• Other features like safe browsing can help you avoid dangerous links, bad downloads, malicious websites, and more when you’re online —all of which scammers and thieves can use to steal personal info.

So while it may seem like all this rampant collecting and selling of personal information is out of your hands, there’s plenty you can do to take control. With the steps outlined above and strong online protection software at your back, you can keep your personal information more private and secure.

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Identity theft protection and privacy for your digital life

10 Best Ways to Hide Your Identity Online

Tim Fisher has more than 30 years’ of professional technology experience. He’s been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the SVP and General Manager of Lifewire.

Updated on May 4, 2023

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Hiding your identity while using the internet means that you’re not leaving behind traces of who you are. You’re able to enjoy the web like you normally would, but you’re also able to take precautions to ensure that your identity won’t be so easily compromised.

While the best solution to online anonymity is to disconnect from the internet altogether, that’s quite unrealistic for most of us. Instead, there are several ways to cover your tracks and hide your online identity, and they’re all absolutely free and relatively easy for anyone to work into their daily life.

Below are several tips anyone can follow to hide what you search for, keep your personal information off of the web, mask your IP address, and more.

Why Is Hiding Your Identity Important?

It’s far too easy for our personal details to leak on the internet, either via hackers, companies selling the information, or some other dishonorable method. Securing your identity as you use the web helps keep your personal details at a minimum so that you don’t have to worry so much about identity theft, harassment, privacy intrusion, spam, etc.

Browse Anonymously for a Hidden Identity

The best way to hide online is to browse the web in a way that hides your identity. If your real information isn’t being exposed to the web as you use it, then it’s a lot less likely that someone will get your IP address, find out where you live, know that you are the one searching, target you with ads on your other devices, etc.

There are numerous ways to do this, such as using an anonymous proxy server and connecting to a VPN before using the internet.

Delete Your Personal Information From the Web

It’s hard to hide who you are online when your personal details are already out there! People search engines provide an easy way for anyone to find your phone number, home address, email address, school history, relatives, age, full name, etc.

Although you can’t remove your information for good because it’s all in the public domain on a variety of websites, and continually gets updated, you can do your best to delete what’s out there right now by following the link below (don’t worry, it’s free).

Delete and Hide Your Search Habits

Your identity isn’t just accessible through the internet; anyone with access to your physical device and web browser might be able to see your web search history, the sites you frequent, your list of bookmarks, the user accounts you have, and even your passwords.

If you don’t want this information available, you have to make it a habit to either clear your browser’s history and cookies or use the browser’s private mode. Securing your computer with a password is helpful in this case, too, as well as encrypting your whole computer.

Another place you can keep your searches private is online. If you search for things as part of a larger service, such as Google Search, your searches are being tracked and logged, but you can still delete them. Learn how to clear your Google Search history for help.

Use a Junk Email Account to Handle New Account Details

Every time you sign up for a user account on a new website, you have to provide details that usually include your email address. If you want to really stay private online, you should provide an email account that isn’t tied to your real identity.

There are two clear benefits to doing this: any spam that gets sent through that new account is delivered to a specified email address and not your “primary” one; and should the account be hacked, your other accounts won’t also be compromised because you’re using different email addresses for those.

There are several security and privacy minded email services that are great for this, but you can also sign up with a temporary email account that expires shortly after you use it or just use a second (or third, etc.) standard email service.

Some email providers act as a middleman between you and whoever it is you’re emailing. You can send and receive emails using your primary email account without ever revealing it to recipients. The makers of the private search engine DuckDuckGo offer this kind of email service through their app.

An alternative to using a second email account is to use a service that lets you borrow other people’s account details. BugMeNot is the best example of this, where you can search for a site to see the username and passwords users have submitted.

Providing false personal details isn’t always legal, so make sure you abide by what the signup form calls for. If you have to divulge your real name and address for a bank registration form, for example, or a government related service, be sure to do so. Using an alternative email account, though, is completely legal.

Switch to an Encrypted Messaging App

Encrypted messaging apps ensure that only you and the recipient can view messages you’ve exchanged with each other. While there are loads of messaging apps out there, not all of them provide end-to-end encryption. Signal and WhatsApp are examples of encrypted messaging apps.

Avoid Giving Out Your Real Payment Details

Another important component to hiding yourself online is avoiding using your real payment information when buying things or paying people. If you still need to spend money but you want to protect your privacy, there are various ways to do it:

• Use a virtual debit card service like Privacy, which lets you share payment details that aren’t directly tied to you.
• Send cryptocurrency instead of “real” money.
• Buy a gift card or prepaid card, and then share those details instead of your real number.
• Use a mobile payment app so that you don’t have to share your bank account number or card details.

Delete Spyware to Stay Hidden Online

One of the easiest ways hackers track you online is through malicious software that can monitor what you’re doing. These apps are called spyware because they’re spying on you; they can take everything from your web search history and passwords to photos, files, and other personal details.

There are lots of free apps that can remove spyware from your computer. If you suspect an infection, or you want to minimize your chances of one in the future, you should install and run an anti-spyware app.

Another way to prevent spyware is to just be careful what you’re downloading. While it’s true that you can’t perfect this without completely refraining from downloading altogether, you can minimize the likelihood of getting spyware by learning how to safely download files from the internet.

Use RSS to Hide Your Tracks

Instead of bouncing all over the web to visit your favorite sites, which can result in ads following you around, you can hide your tracks a bit better by using RSS feeds to monitor the web pages you like to visit.

When you connect to a website with an RSS feed, you can have updates from that site emailed to you or have them pop up in your RSS reader program. At no point do you have to open any web pages, log in, or leave a trace of what you’re viewing.

Upgrade Your Social Media Privacy Settings

Facebook, the world’s most popular social networking website, seems to make changes to its privacy policy often, and this results in new settings that are difficult to keep track of, or sometimes even fewer options than what you used to have.

Either way, the settings are hard to keep under control, and not knowing what you’re allowing can potentially compromise your safety.

Learn how to hide on Facebook or what to do to make Facebook private. Also, learn how to get a grasp of the Facebook privacy settings so you can make the changes you want to.

You might even prefer to abandon the traditional social media sites and opt instead for so-called anonymous social networking apps.