What Is Incogni? Review of Surfshark’s Data Removal Tool
Incogni is a data removal service from Surfshark that contacts data brokers on your behalf to get them to delete your data. If you’re wondering how it all works, keep reading for our explainer on what is Incogni and how you can use it to keep your data private.
— Last Updated: 2023-04-09T12:00:00+00:00 Facts checked by Vildana Bratic
The battle for online privacy is never-ending. As long as you’re on the internet, someone is collecting your data through forms, cookies and other information. This information makes its way to a data broker who sells your data profile to advertisers, government agencies and even scammers. Thankfully, Incogni is here to save the day.
Key Takeaways: What Is Incogni?
- Surfshark’s Incogni is a service that sends data removal requests to data brokers on your behalf.
- Incogni’s process to contact data brokers is fully automated, which means that all you need to do is sign up for the service and it will do its best to remove your sensitive information from data brokers’ databases.
- Incogni currently deals with over 180 data brokers and public databases, and the number keeps growing as the service expands.
Incogni is a piece of data privacy software that automates data removal requests. It’s a new tool from Surfshark, which is known more for its excellent VPN. It all works automatically, so you barely have to lift a finger to get your sensitive data off the internet. We’ll explore this tool more in this Incogni review.
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02/16/2023
Updated the article to reflect Incogni’s new pricing.
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04/09/2023 Facts checked
Rewritten to include new information: Incogni no longer requires power of attorney from its users, has expanded its network of data brokers, and has streamlined the process for signing up and activating the service.
Although Incogni is owned by Surfshark, it is a standalone service that has nothing to do with the VPN.
Incogni is a tool that removes your private information from data broker systems.
Data broker companies hold a lot of sensitive information. They can sell this information for money, from unscrupulous marketers that take advantage of vulnerable people to health insurance companies that use it to raise rates. Your personal data might even leak to hackers. Incogni can protect you from these scenarios by making sure those data brokers have none of your sensitive information.
Incogni costs $12.99 per month, or $6.49 per month if paid annually.
Incogni is completely safe to use. It’s run by Surfshark, one of the most secure and trustworthy VPNs that we’ve reviewed.
Incogni Review: Strengths & Weaknesses
Pros:
- Removes data from over 180 data brokers
- Completely automated process
- Detailed knowledgebase and FAQ
Cons:
- Lacks live chat support
Features
Incogni’s main feature is the automation of data removal requests. The data removal process starts once you create your account and finish the subscription procedure. There’s really not much there in terms of features, but we’re happy to report that in our testing, it worked just as expected and started applying for data removals straight away.
Keep in mind that this tool is currently only available for residents of the United States, Canada, Switzerland and the European Union. The process relies on stipulations in privacy laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which means data removal requests from citizens of other countries or jurisdictions might get rejected.
Data Brokers That Incogni Deals With
Incogni’s list of data brokers is constantly expanding, and new data brokers are constantly being added. At the time of writing, it includes 180 data brokers and several public databases. Notably, Incogni can send data removal requests to:
- AccuData
- InfoPay
- DecaData
- Censia
- W20
Benefits of Using Incogni
Data brokers collect a lot of sensitive personal information. Although most of these data brokers sell to marketing firms, some of them sell to recruiting firms (like Censia), and others deal with medical data, such as W20. Your health insurer getting a hold of medical data unknown to them might cause them to raise your rates.
Worse still, government agencies of other countries can also purchase this data to perform targeted misinformation attacks. Additionally, some data brokers have suffered data breaches, leaking sensitive information like social security numbers to hackers.
Getting your data out of data brokers’ hands can have a tangible positive impact, not just on your online privacy, but on your life in general.
Pricing
Incogni is a subscription-based service. You can choose to pay per month or get a one-year plan to stave off future data collection. All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. The monthly plan costs $12.99, while the yearly plan will cost $77.88, which works out to $6.49 per month.
In comparison, Delete Me, a competitor data removal service, costs $129 per year, or $10.75 per month, for one person. This makes Incogni the more affordable option.
| Per month | Per year |
|---|---|
| $12.99 per month | $77.88 per year ($6.49 per month) |
User-Friendliness
Using Incogni is as easy as it gets, seeing as there’s not that much to do. The home page displays a dashboard that shows how many requests Incogni has sent out, how many have been completed and how many are still in progress.
It also links to a few frequently asked questions that can help you understand some of Incogni’s requirements and processes.
Besides the dashboard, there’s also the detailed view that houses a list of all the data brokers. Here, you can track your data removal request status for each data broker individually. You can sort brokers by type, level of data sensitivity and request status. Clicking on a specific broker reveals details about it and what kind of information it has on you.
How to Use Incogni for Official Data Removal Requests
Upon signup, Incogni contacts data brokers automatically with official removal requests. It only needs you to fill out and sign an authorization form. The rest of the data removal process is handled by Incogni’s agents.
You may get a notification for a successful or unsuccessful removal request via an email from the data broker. If a request isn’t initially successful, Incogni promises to do what it can to push the issue further and compel data brokers to delete your data.
If the email you received from the broker is negative or intimidating and addressed only to you, Incogni suggests that you reply to the email, cc the email address [email protected] and state the following:
“Please direct all of your communication to Surfshark. They have my consent to manage the data removal process.”
Doing so will leave all further action to Incogni’s team, and the issue will be off your hands.
Other times, you might receive an automated email that requires you to confirm the data removal by clicking a confirmation button. If this happens, click on the link the broker has sent you to delete your data.
Security & Privacy
Incogni asks for some sensitive information from its users. This data is, of course, necessary to ensure that the data brokers possess any of it and to confirm that they have removed it. This data includes:
- Your email address
- Your full name
- Your complete address (including city, state, country and zip code)
- Phone number
- Date of birth
- Signature (for the authorization form)
Some data brokers might have your profile without your email, which is why these additional details are required. Regardless, Surfshark is a trustworthy company that is completely focused on privacy, and you can always request that it remove your data from its servers. You can read our Surfshark review for more details.
Why Incogni Asks for Authorization & Signature
Incogni requires you to sign an authorization form that allows Surfshark (its parent company) to handle official data removal requests in your name. You need to sign the document digitally for it to be valid. Going through the document, we found nothing suspicious or extraneous to the service being provided.
Customer Support
Incogni’s knowledgebase is pretty comprehensive and should be enough to help you understand everything about the service, how it functions, and why it requires the data and authorizations that it does. However, should you be in need of further help, your only avenue for communication is to email support.
Upon sending an email, Incogni opens a support ticket, which should be addressed within 24 hours. This is how Incogni handles refunds as well. Live chat support is off the table, unfortunately.
Final Thoughts
If you’re in fear of your sensitive personal data being used for unsavory activities, you can use Incogni to scrub the internet of most of your private information. In a world where sending data removal requests would be impossibly time consuming, we are big fans of its automated data removal process.
Would you use Surfshark’s Incogni? How do you feel about your data being held by data brokers? Are you protected by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or similar? Have you used a service for personal data removal? Let us know in the comments below, and as always, thank you for reading.
