PCMag began evaluating and reviewing antivirus software shortly after antivirus apps for PCs became available. As new types of attacks on your privacy arise, so do new defenses, such as services that clear your private details from data broker websites. And we cover those services. When a site like National Public Data, which lost the SSNs of every American in a breach, rebrands as a people search site, personal data removal services step in. We evaluate these services based on price, ease of use, and bonus features, and we put each one through hands-on tests. Incogni, Optery, and Privacy Bee emerged as the top performers in our analysis, earning our Editors’ Choice award for their verifiable and comprehensive data removal capabilities. These aren't the only ones worth considering, though. Read on for more options and tips on selecting the service that best suits your needs.
Overview
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![Incogni]()
Best for Suppressing Data GatheringIncogni
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![Optery]()
Best for Precise, Verifiable Data RemovalOptery
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![PrivacyHawk]()
Best for Mobile-Focused UsersPrivacyHawk
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![Abine DeleteMe]()
Best for Masking Personal DataAbine DeleteMe
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![Aura]()
Best For Protecting Many DevicesAura
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![Privacy Bee]()
Best for Comprehensive Personal Data RemovalPrivacy Bee
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![IDX Complete]()
Best Range of Privacy ToolsIDX Complete
You Can Trust Our Reviews
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
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![Incogni]()
Best for Suppressing Data GatheringIncogni
Pros & Cons
Initially a subsidiary of Surfshark (primarily a VPN company), Incogni now operates independently, checking your personal profile across hundreds of sites. When it finds you on a people search site, it sends a personalized opt-out request. For data broker sites that don’t reveal exactly what data they hold, it sends a generic official opt-out request. Incogni costs less than $100 per year, while the overall average is closer to $200. It’s a bargain.
Why We Picked It
Pricing options: At $99.48 per year, Incogni’s subscription fee is significantly lower than the average of more than $150. That payment gets you all the features of this thorough data removal service except for the ability to request custom data removal for sites where opt-out isn’t automated. If you want custom removals, you must upgrade to an Unlimited account, which costs $179.88.
Services available for free: Incogni’s free Digital Footprint Checker quickly generates a report of people search sites that have profiled you. Incogni also makes detailed manual opt-out guides for 85 common data brokers. If you have the time to follow the opt-out instructions for any found brokers, you can make a good start at reducing your digital footprint without spending any cash.
Opt-out for family members: With Incogni, a family subscription costs $191.88 per year, roughly $100 more than an individual subscription. Given that the family subscription covers five individuals, that’s quite a good deal. On an individual basis, the family plan costs $38.38 per year, which is less than Optery’s limited Core pricing tier. If you want Incogni’s Unlimited edition for your family, which enables custom removal requests, you pay $275.88, again roughly $100 more than an individual Unlimited subscription.
Breadth of coverage: Incogni is laser-focused on removing your personal data from online brokers. Including both people search sites and data brokers without a public face, it currently manages removals for 420 websites. Incogni maintains another list of sites that, although not suitable for automatic removal, have had successful custom removal requests processed. That’s another 1,000 sites, or 2,000 depending on which pages from Incogni’s website you believe.
Custom removals: Incogni comes in two subscription tiers, Standard and Unlimited. Unlimited costs nearly twice as much as Standard and adds exactly one significant feature—custom removal requests. Those at the Unlimited level can submit an unlimited number of requests to have specific data removed from websites that Incogni doesn’t handle automatically. The service identifies 1,000 sites where custom removals have been successful (or 2,000, depending on the source), but your requests aren’t limited to these sites.
Privacy bonus features: Incogni focuses strongly on its core purpose: finding your personal data on broker and aggregator sites and getting it removed. It does have one handy feature that competitors haven’t mentioned. Some of the more legitimate brokers maintain a suppression list. If you’re on the list, the broker will not re-add you to their database, even if they re-find your data. Incogni adds you to suppression lists whenever available.
Who It’s For
Numbers chasers: When picking an antivirus, you look for one with top test scores. But what stats can you compare when choosing a service to remove your personal data? Incogni automates removal from over 420 broker sites, which is more than most of its competitors. Custom removals are known to be effective on another 1,000 or more. Those are some good numbers.
Family protectors: A subscription to remove your own data from online brokers is sufficient for some, but others need to handle privacy for the whole family. Incogni offers an unusually inexpensive family plan that covers five adults for about $100 more than an individual subscription. On a per-person basis, it’s cheaper than the least expensive competitor.
Specs & Configurations
200+ Removals Automated Custom Removal Requests DIY Removal Instructions Family Data Removal Free Version Available Multi-Factor Authentication Learn More Incogni Review -
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![Optery]()
Best for Precise, Verifiable Data RemovalOptery
Pros & Cons
Optery starts with a broad scan to find just where you’re being profiled. What happens next depends on what tier you choose. At the priciest tier, Optery acts as your proxy to opt out of hundreds of data aggregator sites, more than most competitors. In the free tier, you have to do the job by hand. Tiers in between offer a mix of automated and DIY removals—the more you pay, the more automation is included. In its detailed reports, you can reference screenshots that show your data was present and is now absent. If you find yourself profiled on a site Optery doesn’t cover, you can submit a custom removal request as long as you’ve subscribed at the Ultimate level.
Why We Picked It
Pricing options: Most personal data removal services charge a single full price to automate the removal of your data from brokers and trackers. Many offer a free report along with instructions for opting out manually. With Optery, you have choices between full automation and full DIY. For just $39 per year, the Core subscription tier automates removals from over 365 common brokers, leaving you to remove others manually. At the $149 Extended tier, Optery handles over 545 brokers automatically and removes some limitations from the Core edition. For full coverage, everything automated and no DIY, you must upgrade to the Ultimate tier, which automates removals from over 640 broker sites and costs $249 per year.
Services available for free: Personal data removal services often provide a free introductory scan, along with a collection of free guides for manually opting out of many broker sites. Optery offers a complimentary Basic subscription tier. When you sign up, you receive a free exposure report every 3 months that includes screenshots of your exposure, links to your online profiles, and DIY removal instructions for each site that holds your data.
Opt-out for family members: When you add family members to your Optery account, you get a percentage-based volume discount. For two adults, you get 20% off. Raise that to three, and the discount bumps up to 25%. Finally, for four or more adults, a 30% discount applies. For example, the three subscription tiers cost $39, $149, and $249 per individual. With a family of four, those yearly subscription fees would be $109.20, $417.20, and $697.20.
Breadth of coverage: Optery's various subscription tiers automate data removal for a range of broker sites. However, at the top tier, the Ultimate tier, Optery actively checks more than 400 data brokers for your information, saving screenshots of its findings as proof. Engaging the Expanded Reach feature adds 240 more sites that don’t offer a public face for Optery to search—the service simply sends an official removal request to these. Optery lists nearly 1,000 more sites for which it has handled custom removals, bringing the total to over 1,640.
Custom removals: Most of Optery’s subscription tiers involve automated removal of your data from some sites and DIY opt-out from others. At the top tier, Ultimate, Optery automates removal for hundreds of data brokers and aggregators, but there are always more. If you’re an Ultimate subscriber and, despite Optery’s efforts, you find your personal data online, you can submit the offending URL as a custom removal request. There is one limit. You can’t start making custom removal requests until after your subscription's 30-day money-back refund period has passed.
Privacy bonus features: Optery does everything you’d expect. It identifies your personal information on data broker sites and automatically removes that information. It reports on its activities and repeats its scan as necessary. But you won’t find features outside of this strong focus on personal data removal. One unusual perk of Optery is the GPC (Global Privacy Control) Chrome extension. This extension simply informs every website you visit that you don’t consent to your data being collected.
Who It’s For
Thrifty users: Many companies offer a free personal data scan that feeds into a not-free subscription for automated data broker cleanup. With Optery, you have more choices, starting with a Core subscription for just $39 per year. That subscription automates some removals and leaves others for you to manage on your own, a nice choice for the thrifty user. If the DIY tasks become tedious, you can always upgrade.
Freebie lovers: Don’t want to pay even a low subscription fee? The totally free Basic subscription gets you full reporting on data brokers that hold your personal profile. The report includes links to your profiles, and Optery supplied DIY removal guides for hundreds of sites.
Numbers chasers: You want the best service for clearing your personal data, but how do you measure what’s best? At its top tier, Optery handles removal from 400+ data brokers with verifiable success and can send removal requests to another 240 that don’t make their databases publicly visible. Add almost 1,000 sites where the Optery team has verified successful custom removals, and you’ve got 1,640+, an impressive number.
Specs & Configurations
200+ Removals Automated Custom Removal Requests DIY Removal Instructions Family Data Removal Free Version Available Multi-Factor Authentication Protection Type Data Broker Opt-Out Learn More Optery Review -
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![PrivacyHawk]()
Best for Mobile-Focused UsersPrivacyHawk
Pros & Cons
PrivacyHawk handles the basic task of getting your data removed from brokers and aggregators in a straightforward fashion. It also helps you find and delete old online accounts, thereby eliminating one source of data for those brokers. As a bonus, you can use it to automatically unsubscribe from the newsletters and repeating emails that clog your inbox. And it does all this from your smartphone, for a lower price than most competitors.
Why We Picked It
Pricing options: At $74.99 per year, PrivacyHawk Premium is the second least expensive of this group, beaten only by Optery’s $39 Core subscription. But note that PrivacyHawk’s price gets you the full data broker removal service, while Optery Core is relatively limited. Please note that to receive identity theft protection, you must upgrade to PrivacyHawk Platinum, which costs $124.99. That’s less than Optery’s middle tier, and also less than the other two services providing identity theft remediation, Aura and IDX Complete.
Free services: Anyone can download the PrivacyHawk mobile app and start using the service. At no cost, you can run a privacy score scan and a digital footprint scan, checking the dark web and data brokers for your personal data. Unlike any other service I’ve encountered, PrivacyHawk even automates removals for free users, though it limits them to 10 removals per month.
Opt-out for family members: As with many mobile apps, you install PrivacyHawk’s free app and then add full features by in-app purchase. Pricing isn’t found on the website. I had to dig a bit to find details about this app’s family plan. For $199.99 per year, a PrivacyHawk family plan protects up to four individuals. That’s about $100 less than four individual subscriptions, which seems like a good deal.
Breadth of coverage: PrivacyHawk is among the newer personal data removal services, and is unusual in that it’s strictly a mobile experience. I didn’t find a list of broker sites that it automates personal data opt-out for, but during my review, I determined that it checked 102 broker sites.
Custom removals: Many personal data removal services include custom removals in their systems. If you see your personal information on a site that the service doesn’t cover automatically, you can submit an official custom removal request. With PrivacyHawk, it’s a much more informal approach. You simply open a ticket with support, and they do their best to clear out your private data.
Privacy bonus features: When your personal data is publicly exposed in a breach, nothing prevents a data broker from collecting it. PrivacyHawk’s dark web tracking feature alerts you to breaches so you can re-secure the associated accounts. You can also have PrivacyHawk scour your saved webmail messages to identify accounts that you may have forgotten or abandoned. Deleting these accounts deprives brokers of another source of information. PrivacyHawk also flags repeating email notifications and helps you unsubscribe. If you opted for PrivacyHawk Platinum, you get a degree of identity theft protection, though it doesn’t track your credit, watch for anomalous transactions, or deal with a lost wallet. The main benefit is dedicated and personalized help with identity recovery, backed by a $1 million guarantee.
Who It’s For
Thrifty users: A full, working PrivacyHawk subscription costs less than any competition except for Optery’s seriously limited Core subscription. Even its top-tier subscription, with identity theft protection, costs less than most. If you’re looking to protect both your privacy and your finances, PrivacyHawk is worth considering.
Freebie lovers: Several services offer a free scan to reveal which brokers have built a profile using your personal information. In almost every case, if you want help with opting out, you must upgrade to a paid subscription. PrivacyHawk is unique in that it provides even free subscribers with access to automated data removals. It just limits those removals to 10 per month.
Identity defenders: By seeing the big picture, you realize that your personal data removal service would be even better if it addressed other threats to your privacy, such as identity theft. A $50 upgrade to PrivacyHawk Platinum protection does the job. PrivacyHawk doesn’t perform nearly as many monitoring tasks as its competitors, but if you're hit by identity theft, it offers a dedicated agent to help with recovery, backed by a $1 million guarantee.
Feature collectors: You could engage one service for dark web monitoring, one to automate data broker opt-outs, and one to help you with identity theft. Or you could just use PrivacyHawk, which does all those things and more. It can scan your email message trove to identify accounts that you may have forgotten, helping you delete any unwanted ones. That scan also helps you unsubscribe from unwanted newsletters and similar content. Now, when that long-forgotten merchant gets breached, your data won’t be exposed, because it isn’t there.
Specs & Configurations
Custom Removal Requests Family Data Removal Free Version Available Identity Monitoring Learn More PrivacyHawk Review -
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![Abine DeleteMe]()
Best for Masking Personal DataAbine DeleteMe
Pros & Cons
By the time most of its competitors reached their first release, DeleteMe was already a presence in the market. Dating back nearly 15 years, it's been around the block. That long-term experience is valuable, but DeleteMe hasn’t evolved as much as some of its brash young competition. On the positive side, DeleteMe now includes useful identity masking tools borrowed from the related service. DeleteMe doesn’t manage data removal for as many sites as most competitors, but it’s had years to choose the most prolific such sites and fine-tune its techniques for removing personal profiles. The masked emails feature is a total bonus, protecting your privacy by hiding your true email address.
IronVestWhy We Picked It
Pricing options: For ages, DeleteMe has had the same price—$129 per year. Back in the day, when there were few competitors, that seemed rather high. Now, though, it’s just middling.
Services available for free: Anybody can launch a free DeleteMe scan to get a listing of data brokers and other sites where your personal data is exposed. Combine that with DeleteMe’s free opt-out guides, and you can make a serious dent in your digital footprint, presuming you have the time to pursue manual cleanup.
Opt-out for family members: Even if you clear up every instance of your profile from data brokers online, you could still be exposed through your spouse or partner. For another $100, you can extend DeleteMe’s services to another adult. For $200 above the base rate (a total of $329), DeleteMe will handle data broker removal for up to four adults. That’s a savings of almost $200 over the cost of four individual subscriptions.
Breadth of coverage: DeleteMe offers a page listing more than 850 brokers from which it removes data. However, if you parse the arcane footnote symbols used in the list, you’ll find that for a standard subscription, it only automates removal from 85 of those. More than 300 are only processed for business or international accounts. And the majority, more than 560, are simply sites for which DeleteMe has shown success in custom removals.
Custom removals: As noted, most broker sites in DeleteMe’s list are flagged for custom removal. That means DeleteMe has successfully removed personal data from these sites. If you find your data on such a site, you must actively request its removal. You can also request the removal of personal data from any site where you find it, within reason. DeleteMe does impose a limit of 40 custom removals per year, but I don’t imagine many users hit that limit.
Privacy bonus features: For most of its existence, DeleteMe has focused solely on removing personal data from brokers and aggregators. More recently, it has expanded slightly. Using IronVest's masked email technology, DeleteMe can manage temporary email addresses, allowing you to interact online without revealing your actual email address. Keeping your email address private deprives brokers of a primary source of information. Note that IronVest, originally called Abine Blur, originated with DeleteMe’s owner, Abine.
Who It’s For
Family protectors: You’ve taken care of clearing your own private data from info-hungry brokers, but now you want to extend that protection to your family. A full four-adult DeleteMe subscription costs almost $200 less than signing up for four individual accounts, making it a good deal for family protection.
Old-school enthusiasts: You say you want to work with an experienced service provider? DeleteMe debuted in 2011, years before most of its competitors emerged. The DeleteMe team has been working on removing personal data from broker sites for some time.
Specs & Configurations
Custom Removal Requests DIY Removal Instructions Family Data Removal Multi-Factor Authentication Learn More Abine DeleteMe Review -
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![Aura]()
Best For Protecting Many DevicesAura
Pros & Cons
Bottom Line:
Bottom Line:
Aura offers broad identity and privacy protection system, but its local device protection doesn’t make the grade.Specs & Configurations
200+ Removals Automated Family Data Removal Identity Monitoring Malicious URL Blocking Multi-Factor Authentication On-Access Malware Scan On-Demand Malware Scan Parental Control Phishing Protection VPN Limited Learn More Aura Review -
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![Privacy Bee]()
Best for Comprehensive Personal Data RemovalPrivacy Bee
Pros & Cons
When you want your personal data cleared from online sites, you want it cleared from of them. Privacy Bee automates the cleanup of your data from more than 1,000 people search and data broker sites, as of this writing, more than any competitor. You can also use Privacy Bee’s risk assessment analysis at no charge. It does all the work of finding and reporting where your personal data has turned up, but leaves you to handle the opt-out requests yourself, with detailed DIY instructions. Privacy Bee lets you define your trust relationship with over 180,000 companies, and you can request the removal of your data from any you don’t trust. In addition to locating sites that have legally collected your data, it reports when your data is illegally exposed in a data breach. Add tracking of your info in search results and public social media posts, and you’ve got a thoroughly comprehensive system for clearing your personal profile from places it shouldn’t be.
allWhy We Picked It
Pricing options: Privacy Bee has been $197 per year for a long time. That includes all features, such as automated removals from over 1,000 sites, unlimited custom removals, and various privacy bonuses. You can downgrade to an Essentials subscription, reducing the price to $95.97. However, at this tier, Privacy Bee only removes data from people search sites, omits custom removal requests, and forfeits most of those privacy bonuses.
Services available for free: Like Optery, Privacy Bee offers a free subscription tier. You initiate the process by performing a free scan. Once the scan starts returning exposure information, you’ll see that each reported incident includes a link to DIY removal instructions. I didn’t find a way to review the entire list of guides, but the only really important ones are the ones that pertain to your actual online profile data.
Opt-out for family members: In the past, Privacy Bee’s family plan was simple. To protect two individuals, just get two subscriptions. Currently, the company offers a few simple volume discounts. You can protect two adults for $374.30 and three for $547.66. That’s not a huge discount—5% off for two and about 7% off for three—but it’s better than no discount.
Breadth of coverage: According to its CEO, Privacy Bee has one employee whose entire job is to monitor new data broker and aggregator sites and bring them under the company’s jurisdiction. Currently, Privacy Bee handles automated removals for approximately 1,040 sites, including people search sites, people search affiliates, and brokers with purposes such as recruitment, marketing, and geolocation. Additionally, the service lists over 180,000 sites with known details for custom removal requests.
Custom removals: Privacy Bee handles automated personal data cleanup for more than 1,000 sites. It also maintains a database of over 180,000 company sites, providing detailed information about each. You can mark a company as trusted or untrusted, and you can dig in to request the removal of your data from any of these sites. Theoretically, you can request the custom removal of your found personal data from any site, but I wonder how often you’ll find a site that’s not included in the list of 180,00.
Privacy bonus features: One way brokers obtain your data is when a secure site is compromised or goes rogue and sells your account information. If you give Privacy Bee access to your webmail, it will list off all the accounts it finds. By going through and deleting unused and abandoned accounts, you deprive the brokers of that input. Privacy Bee also scans the dark web for breaches and comes with pages of additional help, allowing users to opt out of unwanted services, such as junk mail and robocalls. It lists details for more than 180,000 companies and lets you mark each as trusted or not. You can even dig in and fine-tune how much you trust a company. For example, you can remove trust for direct mail contact, text messages, or facial recognition.
Who It’s For
Freebie lovers: Why should you pay to have Privacy Bee send opt-out requests to data brokers? You can simply run its free scan to find instances of your profile, then follow the links in the scan report for DIY removal instructions.
Numbers chasers: You know the stats for all your favorite ball players, and you’d like to pick a data broker cleanup service based on similar stats. Well, Privacy Bee definitely has the numbers. Its list of more than 1,000 sites for automated opt-out is larger than that of any of its competitors. However, for a truly large number, try 180,000. That’s the number of companies in Privacy Bee’s trust database. You can tune your relationship with any of these, or use the database entry as a springboard for a custom removal request.
Feature collectors: A service like Privacy Bee only has to do one thing—get your personal profile removed from data broker sites. Privacy Bee goes way beyond that minimum. As noted, you can use it to define your trust relationship with 180,000 companies. It helps with opting out of robocalls and junk mail. It can scan the dark web for exposed personal data. With your permission, it can rifle through your email to identify all your accounts, then help you delete unused and abandoned accounts. It’s just bursting with privacy features.
Specs & Configurations
200+ Removals Automated Active Do Not Track Custom Removal Requests DIY Removal Instructions Family Data Removal Free Version Available Identity Monitoring Multi-Factor Authentication Protection Type Data Broker Opt-Out Learn More Privacy Bee Review -
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![IDX Complete]()
Best Range of Privacy ToolsIDX Complete
Pros & Cons
The ForgetMe personal data cleanup tool is just one facet of the comprehensive privacy and identity solution that comprises IDX Complete. It also offers comprehensive identity monitoring and identity theft remediation, backed by a million-dollar insurance guarantee. It includes a password manager and VPN that further secure your private data. Like Privacy Bee, it blocks advertisers and others from tracking you as you surf the web. Clearing your personal data from sites that have hoovered it up from all around the internet is a great way to enhance your privacy, but it’s not the only way. If you're looking for a comprehensive range of privacy tools, IDX Complete is an ideal choice.
Why We Picked It
Pricing options: Brace yourself, because IDX Complete costs more than most, $355.32 per year. The thing is, it also does more than most. In addition to personal data removal, an IDX Complete subscription provides comprehensive identity theft detection and remediation, as well as dark web scanning, VPN, password manager, and more.
Services available for free: Identity theft monitoring and remediation require significant expense and resources, so identity theft services rarely offer anything for free. Indeed, I can’t find any sign of a free offer from IDX.
Opt-out for family members: Just as an individual IDX Complete subscription costs more than the other services described here, a family subscription also costs more than the others. For $701.88 per year, you get protection for two adults and five minor children. At this higher level, you receive device-level protection for up to six devices, rather than three.
Breadth of coverage: The ForgetMe section of IDX Complete’s FAQ pages lists 137 data broker sites for which the service can automate the removal of personal data. That’s just a few items short of the 140 sites managed by Aura. Like Aura, IDX Complete includes a wide range of privacy features beyond personal data removal. Rather than trying to catch every possible data broker, it focuses on the most important ones.
Custom removals: Even when IDX Complete has cleared your personal data from all the brokers on its list, you may still find sites holding your personal data. Many personal data removal services provide a way to request the removal of your data (though they don’t promise success). With IDX Complete, custom removal requests aren’t available.
Privacy bonus features: IDX Complete is primarily a security and identity theft service, one that includes the ForgetMe personal data removal system as just one of its components. In addition to finding your private data on broker sites, it scans the dark web and reports on any exposures. Your subscription includes a VPN, password manager, tracker-blocking system, and more, though antivirus protection isn’t included. It monitors your credit scores and a variety of indicators that may signal early signs of identity theft. And if you get hit by identity thieves regardless, it offers the expected personal help with recovery, backed by a $1 million guarantee.
Who It’s For
Identity defenders: IDX Complete is a full-on identity protection service that also includes a personal data removal component (called ForgetMe). It handles expected credit score monitoring and watches for other signs of incipient identity theft, and backs its personalized recovery help with a $1 million guarantee.
Feature collectors: Maybe you’d rather purchase one multi-function service than deal with three or four separate subscriptions? IDX Complete is loaded with features. I’ve noted the components related to personal data removal and identity theft. Other features include dark web monitoring, a VPN, a password manager, a tracker-blocking browser add-on, and more.
Specs & Configurations
$1 Million Insurance Antivirus Dark Web Monitoring Data Broker Opt-Out Identity Monitoring Identity Theft Remediation Monthly Credit Score Multi-Factor Authentication Password Manager Social Media Tracking VPN Full Learn More IDX Complete Review -
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Best For | Best for Suppressing Data Gathering | Best for Precise, Verifiable Data Removal | Best for Mobile-Focused Users | Best for Masking Personal Data | Best For Protecting Many Devices | Best for Comprehensive Personal Data Removal | Best Range of Privacy Tools | Best for Suppressing Data Gathering | Best for Precise, Verifiable Data Removal | Best for Mobile-Focused Users |
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Buying Guide: The Best Personal Data Removal Services for 2026
Who Is Gathering Your Personal Data?
There are two main types of sites that collect your personal data: people search sites and data brokers. Data brokers scrape your personal data across the web, package it into a profile, and sell it to anyone who is willing to buy. Primarily, their customers are advertisers who use your information for targeted browser ads, email spam, or even direct mail campaigns. But shady characters prepping for identity theft can also purchase these profiles.
However, people search sites bill themselves as friendly, helpful services. They’ll reconnect you with old friends or conduct a background check on a potential date. What’s wrong with that?
If you try a free lookup on one of these sites, you’ll find some sketchy features. Typically, you’ll see a continuous display of activity, complete with a progress bar that tells you what's supposedly happening in the background: Now we’re searching for matching addresses, now we're checking court filings, and now we're riffling through property records, each with a progress bar. Often, the process will pause to request additional information from you. It’s all smoke and mirrors; the actual search happens instantly.
Ultimately, you receive a few hits that may be your target, displaying partial information such as name, state, and age. Want more details? Enter your email and pay a fee. Since you’ve already interacted with the site for five minutes or more, you may feel that spending a few bucks is just protecting your time investment.
But think. Now, the search site has at least your name and email. It also has the credit card you used for payment. If this seems fine to you, you probably don’t need a personal data removal service. But if you’re at all concerned with your privacy, don’t fall for the hook. Consider engaging a service to remove your data from these sketchy sites.
How Many Data Brokers Have Your Personal Data?
Selling personal profiles is a lucrative business. There are hundreds of sites doing it, more every day. One way to select a removal service is to look for one that handles the most such sites. With over 1,000 sites primed for automated removal, Privacy Bee is a clear winner on that basis. If you pay for its highest-priced tier, Optery has the next highest count, with more than 600 sites. Incogni's collection spans 420 sites, encompassing both people search sites and private data brokers.
Aura and IDX Complete manage data cleanup on roughly 140 sites, as of this writing, while DeleteMe manages cleanup on only 85 sites. PrivacyHawk's list of curated broker sites tops out around 100.
Please note that site-counting is a contentious issue among these services. Some contend, correctly, that competitors garner larger numbers by counting multiple URLs that redirect to the same basic site. Some make counting difficult by listing sites that they only manage as custom removals.
How Much Do Personal Data Removal Services Cost?
Sure, you want your data cleared from as many sites as possible, but you don’t want to break the bank to get that job done. Price is also relevant. Years ago, DeleteMe seemed expensive, justifying its $129 yearly fee based on the need for human intervention in many removals. You pay $89.88 per year for Incogni, while PrivacyHawk offers the lowest full-coverage price at $74.99 per year.
At the other end of the spectrum is IDX Complete, which costs a whopping $355.32 per year. To be fair, IDX Complete is a full suite of security and privacy components, including a complete identity theft monitoring and remediation system. Aura also combines personal data removal with identity theft protection and adds antivirus protection for $144 per year.
Optery pricing is more complex, as it offers multiple tiers. At the Ultimate tier, Optery costs $249 per year and automates removal across 400+ sites. Choosing the Extended tier reduces the price to $149 and includes automated cleanup for 305 sites; you’re responsible for DIY removal from the remaining sites. At the Core tier, Optery handles cleanup for only 130 sites. The Core tier costs $39 per year but imposes limits on the data it checks. Please note that there's no additional charge for adding Expanded Reach at any of the three levels. Doing so enables removal requests for an additional 245 sites.
(Credit: Optery/PCMag)Privacy Bee and Kanary cost less than Optery’s Ultimate tier but more than its Extended tier. Specifically, you pay $197 per year for Privacy Bee and $179.88 for Kanary.
Can You Do Personal Data Removal Yourself for Free?
There is one other price worth mentioning, and that’s zero. DeleteMe, Incogni, Optery, PrivacyHawk, and Privacy Bee offer you the ability to use their private data scan results at no charge. PrivacyHawk simply points you to the profiles you found, leaving you to figure out the removal process. The others supply site-specific DIY instructions for managing removal requests yourself. You can save hundreds of dollars if you have the time to do the job yourself.
Before committing to that project, consider how long it might take. A test scan by a PCMag author found over 800 items of personal data on more than 90 websites. The process for removal from a site varies, ranging from a simple form to a complicated process requiring scanned documents. Supposing a manual removal averages five minutes, dealing with those 90 sites would take nearly eight hours of your valuable time.
Going Beyond Data Brokers and People Search Sites
All the services gathered here aim to remove your personal data from people search sites, data brokers, and other online data aggregators. Some take the hunt for your data to deeper levels. Privacy Bee finds and reports on data breaches that have exposed your data. IDX Complete and Aura also monitor breaches as part of their identity protection.
PrivacyHawk makes it easy to identify and delete accounts that you no longer use. That way, there's no chance of exposure if the site gets breached or goes bankrupt and sells off its assets. PrivacyHawk is also strictly mobile, which will appeal to some users. Kanary has a mobile focus, and Optery released native mobile apps for Android and iOS last year.
Privacy Bee’s list of items for consideration includes a few dozen described as industry opt-outs, such as getting on the Do Not Call registry and opting out of snail-mail spam. It also reports when it finds your data in iffy search results and public social media posts.
There’s always the chance you’ll run across your data on a site not covered by your personal data removal service. Users in Optery’s top tier can submit 40 custom removal requests per year for such sites. You may also want to remove your data from other sites before they can accidentally or deliberately release that data. DeleteMe lists almost 700 sites where it can clear your data, and you can submit your own custom removal requests. Incogni supports custom removals on any site but flags 1,000 sites where it has already been successful.
Privacy Bee’s similar list goes beyond 180,000. With Privacy Bee, you can flag your relationship with such sites as trusted or otherwise and wipe your data from those you don’t trust.
Are Personal Data Removal Services Safe to Use?
If you want to enlist a service to wrest your personal data from the clutches of data aggregator sites, you necessarily give that service its own access to your sensitive personal information. Otherwise, how would it know what to remove? That does conceivably open a security hole. Anyone who gains access to your account with the service will own all the data you’ve asked it to protect.
Almost all the services listed here use password-based authentication to prevent misuse of the data you share with them. Privacy Bee is an exception in that it relies on the security of your email account. At each login, you receive an authentication code via email. PrivacyHawk also relies on the security of your email account. Of course, if your email account is compromised, your problems are much bigger than merely exposing a few elements of private data.
Password protection fails if a malefactor steals or guesses your password. Multi-factor authentication plugs that potential security gap by requiring an additional authentication factor, typically a code texted to your phone or (better) a time-sensitive value reported by an authenticator app.
DeleteMe, IDX Complete, Kanary, and Optery all support Google Authenticator or a compatible authenticator app. With DeleteMe, you can opt to have a code sent to your primary email address instead. As noted, Privacy Bee also uses an emailed code, but lets you optionally require a second code generated by an authenticator app.
What Else Do Personal Data Removal Services Do?
You can’t fault a service for being laser-focused on its primary task. Incogni and Optery do their best to clear your personal data profiles from data aggregator sites and don’t attempt much beyond that. However, some of their competitors offer additional privacy benefits, and others integrate data removal into a comprehensive suite of privacy features.
Aura and IDX Complete are primarily identity theft remediation services, with credit monitoring and white-glove remediation assistance common to that category. Both report when your personal data is exposed in a data breach, and both include VPN protection and a password manager. IDX Complete features a browser extension that blocks online trackers, a social media monitoring tool, a private search option, and more. With Aura, you get antivirus protection for your devices, including the detection of malicious and fraudulent websites. Both handle the removal of personal data, but it’s not their primary purpose.
On the other hand, PrivacyHawk enters the identity theft protection realm if you opt for its $124.99 Platinum tier. It tracks data exposure on the dark web, monitors for unauthorized SSN use or address changes, and offers the usual $1 million guarantee against expenses incurred in recovering from identity theft. However, it doesn't delve deeply into credit scores, anomalous transactions, and similar items the way a dedicated identity theft service does.
For many years, DeleteMe focused strictly on deleting your personal data from data aggregators. More recently, it has taken the fight upstream, masking your personal data to limit what the aggregators can find. Specifically, it allows you to create temporary email addresses for use in interactions with websites, thereby protecting your actual email address. For an added price, you can use masked phone numbers and (coming soon) masked credit cards.
I mentioned earlier that Privacy Bee enhances its reporting of found personal profiles by incorporating industry opt-out requests and data discovered in public social media posts. Like IDX Complete, it includes a tracker-blocking browser extension and a private search option. It also finds data breaches that expose your data and reports on them. Finally, an unusual email analysis system tracks companies you interact with and allows you to mark them as trusted or not.