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I had my data removed from company databases with this little-known VPN feature
As the years go by, it’s getting harder to ignore the noise surrounding the growing frequency of data breaches.
By the end of October last year, a reported 300 million individuals' records had been exposed globally in 2025. 685 a minute. 11 every second. I’d never really thought about the digital paper trail I was leaving scattering across the web. But with stats like that, it felt like my luck would eventually run out.
And the first half of 2026 has had its share of major breaches, too, among them sportswear company Under Armour, which had the data of 72 million customers leaked by hackers in an online forum.
Yet what really hit home for me was a recent phishing attempt lurking on my iPhone: a fake calendar invite reading “we have blocked your account” and threatening to delete all my photos by the end of the week.
That finally galvanized me to take charge of the reams of data I’d been leaving open to third parties.
I’d already heard of Incogni, the data removal service bundled with the Surfshark One Plus VPN plan. Promising me a hassle-free way to get my details removed from data broker and people search sites, I readily signed up to give it a whirl.
What does Incogni do and how can it help?
Data brokers gather information about you from all kinds of public sites to create a detailed profile they can sell on to advertisers. This can include, but isn’t limited to, your name, age, occupation, family members, and online habits.
That’s largely why you’re bombarded with those targeted ads, spam and robocalls. Yet the situation gets worse when these vast storehouses of data are intercepted and used for illicit purposes by bad actors.
That’s where Incogni comes in.
The data removal service scans broker sites and, backed by relevant data privacy laws (for example, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) if you’re under EU jurisdiction), compels them to take down any information they might hold about you.
Subsequently, they continue to send repeat requests to prevent your details from being sneakily re-added at a later date.
How to setup your Incogni account
After subscribing to Surfshark One Plus or a plan directly from the Incogni website, initiating data removal is pretty straightforward:
- Click on the verification link you were sent from Incogni.
- Create an account password
- Complete your profile: fill in your name, most frequently used address, and country of residence.
- Authorize Incogni to contact brokers on your behalf.
- Review the details you’ve provided.
- Finally, click on Start data removal…
Monitoring your progress via the app's dashboard
Right off the bat, a flurry of requests were fired off after setting up my Incogni account.
The central dashboard offered an overview of these requests, allowing me to comprehend what was happening at a glance. Headings with accompanying ‘i' icons concisely explained the process while clarifying any intimidating terminology, like what “Suppressed” meant.
I was encouraged by seeing the daily changes visible on the main graph. The green line arced ever closer to a series of blue dashes, representing the ongoing removal of my details from data broker sites, letting me know it steadily being taken out of the hands of third-parties.
“Total time saved” was another welcome reminder that Incogni was doing its job, hitting 21 hours a few days after I offloaded the responsibility of my online privacy to the service.
Admittedly, the service's real-world benefits would take more than a week to reveal themselves.
In the short time I'd been using it, I hadn't noticed any less marketing ploys. But then Incogni claims that it takes around a month before you notice a marked reduction in things like spam calls and target ads.
You're encouraged add more info, though, to your profile – up to three emails, addresses, and (US only) phone numbers – following the initial setup, to help cast a wider net and catch more brokers holding large dossiers of your data.
Breaking down Incogni's data brokers
I was surprised to see that, out of an advertised 420+ brokers, just 47 were sent removal requests once I'd created my account. As it turns out, the service only approaches companies they consider regionally relevant, which for a UK citizen like myself, limits the focus to EU-affiliated databases.
In the US, however, its scope is significantly more comprehensive (extending to 417 companies), as I discovered through this searchable list of Incogni’s brokers.
Of particular interest was the broker overview page.
Most of these companies I’d never heard of, yet they'd been keeping tabs on me. Select on each broker, and you get an eye-opening summary on the scope of their operations, and a traffic-light system that alerts you to the companies that pose the biggest threat. For example, brokers trading financial details are flagged as high risk as these could negatively impact your credit rating.
Where to find Incogni
Incogni was developed by Surfshark, so it’s no surprise to find it as part of the VPN provider’s Surfshark One Plus subscription.
It's also available on the Incogni website as a standalone product.
Here, there are three plans in addition to Standard. The Family option covers an additional four people under your membership. With Unlimited, you expand the service's scope to include custom requests, which means you can submit URLs for sites that aren't covered on their standard broker list.
Family Unlimited, meanwhile, unites the additional benefits of both.
