WHAT YOU CAN DO
• Stop third-party tools accessing your online accounts
• Find out how to close your account with any website
• Remove your phone number and address from Google
• Hide details of items you’ve bought from Amazon
• Wipe your viewing activity from streaming services
• Delete recordings of your voice from smart assistants
• Erase posts in bulk from social-media sites and apps
Unlike in real life, where most of the things you say and do eventually fade from memory, the web never forgets. Your digital footprint – all the data you’ve shared online and that’s been shared about you – never fades, but just keeps growing. Details of everything you’ve done online, and personal information you guard closely offline, are spread across the internet for strangers to see and use however they want.
The availability of this data isn’t just embarrassing but potentially dangerous, because it compromises your privacy and leaves you vulnerable to hackers, scammers and data breaches.
You may be vigilant these days about choosing strong passwords and refusing third-party tools access to your accounts, but were you so careful 10 or 20 years ago? While you’ve probably forgotten many of the sites, services and apps you’ve signed up with over the years, they won’t have forgotten you and may be sharing your information with other companies.
In this feature, we explain how you can wipe your digital footprint and reclaim personal data you may not even realise was still on the web. We don’t mean clearing cookies from your browser or blocking ad trackers – which we’ve covered in previous issues – but digging deep into your online past to delete, disconnect and disable everything that threatens the privacy and security of your online life today, and into the future.
DISCONNECT & CLOSE OLD ACCOUNTS
DISCONNECT FORGOTTEN TOOLS FROM YOUR ACCOUNTS
Many websites and apps let you sign up (and in) using your Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook account. This saves you the time and hassle of registering with your email address and coming up with a new password. The downside to this convenience is that it allows third-party tools to access your personal data long after you’ve actually stopped using them.
You may not even remember which services you’ve
