There’s no surefire way to delete something once it’s shared in the digital world, but there are a few ways you can get rid of any traces you’ve left behind. ESET, the world leader in cybersecurity, shared its recommendations on how to remove the traces you leave on the Internet.

Searching Google yourself is an excellent way to discover a small part of what the internet knows about us. More importantly, this is our only method of finding out if we should ask Google to remove relevant personal data that shouldn’t be explicitly shared. In April 2022, Google added new options to remove information that could be used to identify you, including certain data such as ID numbers or photos, banking information, personal information, and hospital information.

How can you remove yourself from the internet?

While there’s no surefire way to delete something when it’s shared online, there are ways to erase the traces you leave behind;

1. Search yourself on Google. First of all, you need to know how much information there is about you on the Internet. Search for your name, check the results on the first five pages, and search for your name along with your phone number or home address to see what comes up.
2. Check the privacy settings of the services you use. Some platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, have privacy settings that prevent your content and contact information from appearing in search engines.
3. Please contact the owner of the website. If you want to delete certain data on another website, request this from the owner of the website. Many websites provide contact information under the ‘Contact’ option.
4. Remove anything unnecessary. Many of us post too much. If you’re concerned about what the digital world knows about you, start by deleting your old Facebook posts, tweets you don’t like, or other photos you’re ashamed of. Privacy is as important to your friends and family as it is to you, so delete any photos you’ve taken with them.
5. Ask Google and Bing to delete your personal information. After some cleaning up for yourself, it’s time to use Google’s new tool https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730 to remove personal information from search results. Currently, Bing only allows the removal of non-consensual images or old content with non-working links. If you live in the EU, use Google’s Right to Be Forgotten form and Bing’s Search Block Request.
6. Think twice before posting anything. Now that you’ve overcome all these challenges, it’s time to plan for the future. Your life in the virtual world continues; you may still want to use Instagram, LinkedIn or another social media platform. This is completely normal. But with a little more effort, check your privacy preferences, choose wisely who can see your posts, and don’t post unnecessary content that you might regret later.
7. Use a VPN tool. With this additional protection shield, your connection is encrypted while your location remains confidential. First of all, this helps prevent hackers from accessing your personal information.