Have you ever wondered why everyone’s so worried about cookies and data collection? Your personal information, such as your name, location, marital status, employment history, and financial records, is constantly being mined. But where does all this data end up?
In most cases, the answer is data brokers. Data brokers collect datasets to either keep them for themselves or sell them to third parties that want to advertise to you. Luckily, there are ways to limit the information they get and remove existing information from their databases. Introducing: Incogni.
Incogni is a data removal service by Surfshark. It contacts data brokers on your behalf and requests the removal of your personal information from their databases. This simplifies, speeds up, and automates data removal requests, improving your online privacy.
The question is: is Incogni the best choice in data removal? In this Incogni review, we pick apart this privacy service to see if it’s worth your money.
Incogni Review: In a Nutshell
Pros
- Sends data removal requests in your name to save you time
- UI is simple, organized, and easy-to-use
- Tracks and reports on responses from data brokers
- Relatively inexpensive
- Recurring data removals
Cons
- Doesn't analyze who has your data; it just sends requests to a pre-set list of data brokers
- Only available in the US, UK, Canada, and the EU
- Doesn't tell you what data was found at each broker
Overall, Incogni is a useful tool for protecting your online privacy. It uses privacy laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to force data collectors to erase your personal information from their online databases. Note that, because of the jurisdictions of these regulations, Incogni only works in the UK, the US, Canada, and the EU.
Creating an Incogni account is easy: all you need is your name and an email address. For Incogni to work properly, however, you also need to provide your address, sign the authorization form, verify your email address, and choose a plan. Incogni handles your data with care, though it should be noted that they use (temporary) marketing cookies on their website.
Incogni works with over 180 data brokers, and that number keeps growing. This includes people search sites (over 66) and brokers from multiple niches, such as marketing, recruitment, financial services, and risk mitigation.
Incogni’s plans are relatively cheap compared to competitors. When it comes to customer service, Incogni’s service team is exceptionally fast and responsive through email, but we’d like a live chat support option.
Within a week after we signed up, Incogni had completed 23 official data removal requests with 81 still pending. This is a commendable rate, although there was no way to verify the exact details that the brokers removed.
Overall, Incogni is a stellar data deletion service. There is, however, some room for this service to grow, and we’re excited to see how it will develop in the future. Would you like to give it a try yourself? Click the link below to visit the Incogni website.
Pricing: How Expensive is Incogni?
Incogni last updated its pricing on the 13th of February and remains surprisingly cheap compared to other options like Abine DeleteMe or Kanary. It has two pricing plans:
- Monthly plan: $12.99 per month
- Yearly plan: $6.49 per month ($77.88 per year)
If you want to save money, we recommend the yearly plan, which saves you 50% compared to the monthly plan. You can pay with your credit card or through PayPal.
Most online privacy tools are much more expensive than Incogni. For example, Kanary’s yearly subscription costs $105, while the family plan costs $150. Similarly, DeleteMe will set you back $129 annually. It’s nice and refreshing to have a budget data removal service. However, keep in mind that the pricier alternatives usually provide a more thorough analysis of what data they found and a rich breakdown of what they were able to remove.
Why get a long-term Incogni subscription?
You might wonder why Incogni offers monthly and yearly subscriptions. Isn’t it enough to send out data removal requests once and be done with it? Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.
An official data removal request might force a broker to delete your data, but it won’t stop them from gathering that data anew. That’s why Incogni sends recurring personal data removal requests. This way, they can ensure a user’s data stays off the market – for as long as that user has an active Incogni subscription.
On top of that, Incogni keeps adding new data brokers. Because of this expanding list, a long-term subscription will pay off: your data will be removed from more places as time goes by. If you’d like to, you can start protecting your data with Incogni right now.
How to cancel your subscription
To cancel your plan, you’ll need to reach out to customer support: support@incogni.com. You can get a refund within the first 30 days of your subscription.
If you pay for the monthly plan, you might wonder what will happen if your subscription ends before a data removal request is completed. Per data rights protocols, data brokers have 30-45 days to respond to data removal requests. Some of them intentionally work at a snail’s pace to hold onto your data for longer. Hence, a request might be pending when your subscription runs out.
The good news is that Incogni will continue to work on pending official removal requests even when your subscription has ended. However, if you want the service to contact a new data broker, you’ll have to renew your subscription.
Privacy: How Privacy-Minded is Incogni?
Since Incogni is a privacy service at heart, it’s no surprise that it handles customer data pretty well. Incogni intentionally collects as little personal information as possible. However, it does ask you for sensitive data from the get-go and has marketing cookies on its website. So, is it as privacy-minded as it seems?
How much information does Incogni store?
Here’s what Incogni stores about you:
- Device information: how you navigate the Incogni website (through analytics and marketing cookies)
- Personal data: your full name, address, and date of birth
- Account information: your email and password
You’ll also need to sign the authorization form, also called a “limited power of attorney,” to give Incogni permission to contact data brokers on your behalf. This power of attorney is vital, because it tells data broker companies that Incogni is legally acting on your behalf.
Most of this information is necessary for Incogni to work. To get the best results, make sure you submit accurate personal info. Otherwise, data brokers might reject your removal requests.
Occasionally, at the urging of data brokers, Incogni may request further information from you. They do this as little as possible, however, especially compared to competitors. Abine’s DeleteMe, for example, demands your government-issued ID right off the bat.
Moreover, Incogni doesn’t sell your data to third parties, so you don’t have to worry about your information floating on the internet because of them. When researching this Incogni review, we did find that they have Google Ads cookies on their website. Since this is really par for the course when using Google Analytics, we have no reason to assume any foul play just from this.
If you have any doubts, you can ask the company to show you what data they have on you. You have the right to correct, update, or delete any data Incogni has on you at any time.
How Incogni protects your privacy
Incogni’s internal algorithm uses the little information you provide at the signup stage (your name, email, and home address) to predict which data brokers might have your data. They’ll then only contact the brokers that could reasonably have data on you. For instance, Incogni will not contact data brokers that don’t collect data within your area.
During our latest tests, they found 106 brokers that might have my data. Earlier tests by other VPNOverview team members came back with only 76. This can be the result of both our testing location and the new databrokers added to Incogni’s program.
After identifying brokers, Incogni automatically makes a request to remove your data from all of them. This method automates and speeds up the data deletion process, but is not foolproof. The downside is that Incogni doesn’t know which details brokers have on you. This is excellent news from a privacy point-of-view. However, it also makes it generally impossible to double-check if brokers have actually removed your information, except for people search sites.
Companies need to comply with data removal requests in 30 days (GDPR) or 45 days (CCPA). Most companies comply within this time frame. If they don’t, Incogni will pursue the matter as much as they can, but this can take a few weeks or even months.
If Incogni adds new data brokers, the service will contact them automatically on your behalf. In other words: you don’t have to take any action yourself. On top of that, Incogni “repeats the process every few months not to just clear your data, but make sure you didn’t end up in their systems later after the initial removal.“
Incogni is only able to act on behalf of residents that are covered by the following laws:
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
- Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
Because Incogni depends on these pieces of legislation, it only works in the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, and the United States. Keep in mind that the US has various privacy laws for different states, so Incogni’s options might differ depending on where you live.
Data brokers Incogni works with
Incogni works with over 180 data brokers, which is more impressive than you might think. When the service was launched in 2022, it was working with only 76 brokers. That’s a huge increase in just one year. Here’s some perspective: DeleteMe works with over 100 data collectors, despite entering the market in 2011.
Incogni prioritizes top-tier brokers in industries like marketing, risk mitigation, recruitment, and people search. Some of the brokers on their list include:
- Yello
- Dailymotion
- Hashtag
- All Webs Leads
- AccuData
- InfoPay
- Censia
Incogni used to be criticised for not working with a lot of people search sites. However, that’s not a problem anymore: they now contact over 66 such sites on a regular basis. Overall, Incogni’s existing data broker list is impressive and grows at an exemplary rate.
Usability: How User-Friendly is Incogni?
We reviewed Incogni’s usability based on three considerations: signup, dashboard functionality, and customer service. Here’s what we found:
- Incogni is easy to set up.
- The dashboard is neatly organized and intuitive.
- Incogni’s customer service is fast and responsive, although not as extensive as we’d like.
Let’s delve into each of these conclusions in detail.
Signing up for Incogni
To get started, go to Incogni.com and sign up to create your account. You’ll only need to enter your email address and a password.
Once you’re done, you’ll be taken to your Incogni account. Before Incogni can start sending requests to data brokers in your stead, you need to complete these four steps:
- Verify your email address.
- Provide additional personal data, including your full name and home address.
- Sign the power of attorney document so Incogni has the right to send official data removal requests in your name.
- Choose a subscription plan. Incogni has two plans, but we recommend the yearly one, especially since Incogni is constantly getting new data brokers on board.
Once you’re done with the registration process, Incogni will start sending official removal requests on your behalf.
When we signed up for an Incogni account and verified our email address, we received an onboarding email explaining the basics of getting started with Incogni with a step-by-step guide. We found this practical and insightful.
While Incogni is doing its thing, you might receive the occasional email from data brokers stating that they don’t have your information or trying to circumvent Incogni and get you to stay in their database. It’s a normal part of the process. If the email is also CC’d to optout@privacy.incogni.com, you can just ignore it. Incogni will take care of it.
If it’s not, you can reply to the email saying that Incogni is taking care of your request, and cc this email address: optout@privacy.incogni.com. They’ll take it from there.
The Incogni dashboard
The default view of the Incogni website after login is the dashboard, which is neatly designed and has a minimalist and intuitive interface.
You can use this dashboard to check the status of your current data removal requests. There are three categories for all of your data requests:
- Requests sent: The number of data brokers Incogni contacted on your behalf
- Requests in progress: The number of brokers that have started processing a data removal request
- Requests completed: The number of brokers that confirmed they now hold no data on you
A helpful pie chart displays Incogni’s process for making your personal information more secure.
Alternatively, you can switch to a “detailed view,” which lets you analyze each of the companies that Incogni is contacting on your behalf. You can see details about the data broker, including their niche and description. You’ll also get to see the status of your request with each data broker.
An interesting feature that’s worth noting is the data sensitivity section. This is measured on a scale of 1-10, where 1 means that the data is not that sensitive, and 10 refers to highly sensitive data, like your social security number or financial information. This breakdown helps you learn more about the kind of personal information that data brokers have on you.
Overall, Incogni looks nice and insightful. The biggest plus of a service like this is that you don’t have much to do after signing up. You just sit back and check the dashboard every now and then. Incogni will do all the work for you!
Incogni’s customer service
Incogni’s customer service options are rather limited. There was no number we could call, nor was there a live chat option. However, Incogni provides reliable email support through this address: support@incogni.com.
We tested Incogni’s customer service by sending them some questions. Impressively, we received a detailed response within an hour.
Furthermore, Incogni has a handy knowledge base, covering the data removal process, dealing with data brokers, and more. We found the answers to be apt and comprehensive. Over time, this knowledge base has grown, too, now including far more information than during our earlier tests. This shows just how well they stick to their promise of continuing to improve their service.
What Is a Data Broker?
Data brokers are companies that collect your information and sell it to third parties, like marketers and advertisers. Also known as information brokers or data resellers, data brokers collect all kinds of information about you. These include your name, gender, age, telephone number, residential address, email address, purchasing history, interests, income, occupation, education, and sometimes even your social security number.
These brokers get their information by crawling the internet, especially your web history and social media. They also get data from government records like marriage certificates, driver’s licenses, census data, and birth certificates.
Why Use a Service Like Incogni?
You might be wondering if you need a service like Incogni at all. In essence, Incogni just contacts data brokers so they erase your personal information. Why pay for a service when you can do that yourself? Well, there are two reasons:
- Time: Sending data removal requests by yourself can take hours and hours. There are over 4,000 data brokers out there. According to Surfshark’s research, if you send official data requests to one broker at a time, you’ll need nearly 70 years to finalize each request. On top of that, in order to prevent brokers from adding your data back in, you’ll have to resend data removal requests after a while.
- Effectiveness: With so many data brokers on the market, you might not know which ones have your personal information on file. As a result, your data request removals may end up being a hit-or-miss affair. Besides, even if you manage to send requests to the right companies, they might draw out the process by requesting you to fill out complex forms and all kinds of verification requests. A service like Incogni is built to jump through these hoops. It’s backed by a knowledgeable legal team and an algorithm that helps pinpoint which data brokers have your information.
Should You Get Incogni?
Incogni is a handy tool by Surfshark, which is better known for its virtual private network (VPN) service. Although Incogni is relatively new, it has already become an established data removal service that is in touch with over 180 data brokers.
Due to its relatively cheap subscriptions, it is a great option for people who are concerned about their privacy but short on time and money. Incogni will take care of all the communication with data collectors, and all you have to do is occasionally check their dashboard to see the status of requests.
We hope this Incogni review showed you the value of Surfshark’s data removal tool. If you want to see it in action, you can create your account here:
If you want to know more about online privacy and how you can safeguard yours, check out these articles:
- How to Browse the Internet Anonymously
- The Best VPNs for Europe
- Take Charge of Your Google Privacy Settings
If you have a question about Incogni, check out the FAQ section below. Click on a question to read the answer.
Incogni is a privacy tool that automates data removal requests on your behalf. In other words: it makes sure companies online don’t have a bunch of personal information about you. The service does a great job of predicting which brokers might have your data, sending removal requests, and tracking their progress. See how the service works in our full-length Incogni review.
You can sign up for an Incogni account without paying. However, you need to subscribe to either the monthly or annual plan for Incogni to send data removal requests on your behalf. Although the monthly plan is pricey, you can save money on the annual plan. Read our Incogni review to see how that works.
Yes, Incogni is legit. The privacy service excels at predicting which data brokers have your data, sending them removal requests on your behalf, and providing progress reports. Also, it’s built by Surfshark, an excellent cybersecurity company that has no records of data breaches in the past. Learn more about Surfshark in our Surfshark review.
Incogni’s cheapest monthly plan costs $12.99. If you opt for the yearly plan, you’ll pay only half, at $6.49 per month (a total of $77.88). Read our Incogni review for a thorough breakdown of Incogni’s pricing.
