Remove data from Data Brokers

 If you have a little change from your tax return, I have a suggestion on where you should spend it this year. This is not sponsored, not an advertisement, and I do not benefit from these companies. I paid for these services out of pocket on my own. Okay.

We all know how scary OSINT can be, being able to look up public information such as age and home address. We hand over this information readily when we use certain products and services. Some of this information is also kept at a criminal level, such as criminal record lookups. 

That's not the only information we hand over, we are tracked and have our data collected every day through data brokers. They profit off of our identities selling it back to one another constantly. 

There are services now that will automate the removal of your data from data brokers. I found Aura and Incogni when promoted online. Both of them had a referral code, but also a standard discount for an annual subscription instead of monthly. At the time of writing, without referral codes, Aura is $144 if billed annually and Incogni is $78 if billed annually. The referral code for Aura drops the price significantly by 50% and it has a 60 day money back guarantee; just look up a youtuber with a referral. With the discount, they basically cost the same.

I was removed from people search sites like Instantcheckmate and Allpeople very quickly. I had to approve which profile was mine, but it worked well. Most of the removal requests were for private marketing websites that held my data, such as Compact and SentiLink. 

Below I have given my pros and cons for each. I hope you find it valuable!

Aura

Why I like Aura:

• The data broker removal process is very easy
• $1 million of identity theft insurance 
• Lost wallet remediation
• 24/7 Support
• When I needed their help immediately at 7am they were online. I called someone, she was super nice, and she solved my problem in less than 10 minutes. I forget her name, but she was cool. 

What I wasn't thrilled about with Aura:

• I didn't find use with the password manager. However, I already use Bitwarden 
• Monitoring your transactions
• You can only supply one email address for data broker lookup 

Incogni

Why I like Incogni:

• It seemed like there were more data broker requests than Aura 
• Aura doesn't say how many data brokers they are requesting
• Each request in progress has a data sensitivity score. 
• It looked up and had me verify profiles to match results to me.
• Email support was friendly and nice

What I wasn't thrilled about with Incogni:

• No other additional features or insurances. It's only for data broker opt-out. 
• No 24/7 support or phone support line

Tips

• Sign up with your most commonly used email, the one you've been using for the longest time or have the most signups with, even if that's not the email you use now. 
• There is no way on either site for you to add additional emails to the data broker search
• Aura lets you add additional emails for darknet searches, but not for the data broker removal service. I emailed them and they stated that's a future goal. 

I would recommend getting one of these services if you have the spare cash to do so. Don't feel obligated to if you can't accommodate it.