This tax season is a key time to delete your personal data from the internet

It’s never been easier for spammers and scammers to get access to your personal data, and this is particularly dangerous during tax season.

With data brokers providing easy access to your phone number, email address, physical address – and even sensitive data like your social security number – tax season can be peak time for fraud. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to reduce the risk.

A simple name search can reveal a surprising amount of personal data. This can include your address, phone number, age, job and even family connections. This is exactly the sort of data used by criminals to commit identity theft and other forms of fraud.

It’s no accident that all of this information is so widely available. It’s systematically purchased and collated by data brokers who then make it available for sale to marketeers and other third parties.

Despite occasional talk of lawmakers or regulators intervening, data broking remains a perfectly legal business, taking advantage of the small-print we frequently agree to when registering to use a website or buying an app. Deliberately vague terms like “sharing data with partners” is code for selling it to data brokers who will then sell it on to others.

Even strong device privacy like Apple’s isn’t enough to protect you: your digital footprint extends well beyond individual devices and the Apple ecosystem.

The law does allow you to opt out, but manually identifying all of the companies holding your data, and issuing removal requests, is an incredibly labor-intensive task. Even if you succeed in tracking down everything out there, brokers frequently re-add personal information to their databases, and new broker websites appear all the time.

Fortunately, there’s a much easier solution.

Incogni’s data-erasure service

Instead of you having to contact hundreds of different companies, jumping through whatever hoops they put in your way, you can outsource the work to data-removal service Incogni.

The company behind Surfshark does all the hard work for you, contacting more than 250 data brokers and people search sites on your behalf, and issuing demands for the removal of all of your personal details. No matter whether you are based in the US, Canada, UK, EU, or Switzerland, Incogni will use the relevant laws in each country when issuing its notices.

The company also runs continual scans to detect new uploads of personal data and issue new takedown notices. It even automates the appeals process when companies claim they have a legitimate reason to store your data.

58% savings for 9to5Mac readers

9to5Mac readers can keep their data off the market with a 1-year subscription at a 58% discount on both individual and family plans. Users can choose to add up to four loved ones to their Family & Friends plan. Users can add up to three phone numbers (US-based customers only), three emails, and three physical addresses.

The deal includes Incogni‘s Unlimited plan, which the company believes to be a game-changer in the world of data removal services. In addition to all the standard data brokers and people-finder sites, Unlimited subscribers can request custom removals from any website that exposes their personal data (with the exception of social media platforms, government records, blogs, and forums) – and dedicated privacy agents will take care of the rest. 

Use this special link to claim your 9to5Mac reader discount, or use promo code 9TO5MAC at checkout.