ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Pros: Automated data-removal with easy onboarding, requires minimal technical knowledge to operate, effective results.
- Cons: Lacks some functionality that competitors provide
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Have you heard of Incogni? The company, launched in 2021 by one of our favorite VPN providers, Surfshark, helps reduce the amount of information that data brokers and people-search websites collect about you.
Your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) — including your name, home address, and contact information — is constantly being exposed, collected, traded, and sold. Many data brokers operate with little legal or regulatory oversight, which means they can profit from you and your data, often without your permission.
This doesn’t mean, however, that trying to pry their hands away from your PII is pointless — it’s just difficult without the right support.
Also: Best data removal services: Wipe away your digital footprint and leave no trace
Dedicated data removal services can tackle data brokers on your behalf, forcing them to remove PII and potentially stop data collection entirely. I’ve spent about a year testing Incogni; here’s why it’s become one of my top choices for data removal services in 2026.
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How much does Incogni cost?
Surfshark’s Incogni is one of the least expensive options available (although, admittedly, not by a huge margin), with one-year plans starting at $8 per month. The company is currently offering a 55% off deal on annual plans for ZDNET readers with the code ZDNET.
One thing to note, however, is that if you want to use the service for custom data removal requests, you will need to sign up for the Unlimited plan, which costs $15 per month. There are cheaper solutions available for custom requests, such as those provided by DeleteMe.
Incogni also recently introduced a three-layer identity protection plan called Incogni Protect, which includes dark web and credit monitoring, as well as identity theft, online fraud, and cyber extortion insurance, powered by Incogni and NordProtect. It’s available to US residents (excluding those in New York and Washington), and costs $20.76 per month.
Setting up an Incogni account
You sign up online and create an account. Choose your plan, then submit some basic information — at a minimum, your first and last name and your email address. It takes no more than a few minutes overall, and I found the process easy to understand, with each section laid out clearly.
However, to fine-tune the search, you can also provide your middle name, date of birth, home addresses, and other email addresses associated with your identity.
To get the best results, I recommend you provide the additional data. It might seem strange to hand over your personal information to a service in order to have it removed, but without it, Incogni will take longer to find records and profiles related to you.
Using the dashboards
After providing the search data, you’ll be shown a dashboard that provides an overview of removal requests, including the number of requests sent, those currently in progress, and the total number of completed requests.
Let’s go through each section step by step. The most important part of the dashboard is the main graph, which displays data removal requests over time. You won’t see anything here immediately after signing up, as it will take time for Incogni’s service to track down brokers and begin issuing removal requests. However, the journey will begin soon.
You’ll see two lines: a green line representing completed removal requests, and a blue, dashed line showing data removal requests in progress. I found it interesting to watch over time, and you can choose to view data by month or your overall total.
On the right, you can see how many brokers are covered and their status: covered, suppressed, monitoring, and in progress. I liked the fact that if you hover over each, you can see what each term means. For your convenience, these terms are described below:
- Covered: Data brokers that have been recorded and data removal requests accepted.
- Suppressed: Data brokers that have added you to a list to stop collecting, storing, or trading your information.
- Monitoring: Data brokers that Incogni will continually send removal requests to, as they like to re-acquire records.
- In progress: Data brokers that Incogni is actively working with to have your data removed.
As a side note, Incogni covers a high volume of data brokers. As you can see, my dashboard shows a relatively small number, likely because I am a British resident. For US citizens, the number of brokers that collect data may be far higher.
Also: 5 simple ways to regain your data privacy online – starting today
Requests may be sent to the same data brokers repeatedly, as removals might not be permanent — there’s little to stop data brokers from reacquiring your data from other parties.
Tracking progress
Incogni provides more than just a graph. The company also estimates the “time saved” compared to submitting each data removal request manually, alongside an activity log showing which data brokers have completed Incogni’s removal requests and when.
If you continue scrolling, you’ll also find a setup guide where you can choose to give Incogni more information (optional) and enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for additional account security.
In the final section of the Incogni dashboard, on the right, you can see a notification tab that lists updates to ongoing data removal requests. On the left, you can also explore “broker compliance,” a window that shows the average time it is taking for brokers to accept data removal requests.
I also found the categories of data broker behavior to be an interesting facet of the service, as they show that not every data broker behaves the same way — and that they don’t always comply with legal requirements.
Incogni offers both an iOS and an Android app that let you view the graph, the number of removals completed, and the time saved. However, you don’t yet get the full functionality of the web version in the app.
Data brokers
If you visit the menu located above your dashboard, you will find a link titled “Data brokers.” If you’re interested in knowing exactly what data brokers have been collecting your information, Incogni provides a link to each organization it has been in contact with.
You can click the name of a data broker to learn about the company, its potential data risks — such as spam calls and targeted ads — its average resolution time for each data removal request, and how compliant (or resistant) it tends to be in wiping consumer data.
Requests
You may also like to explore another menu item called Requests. This offers a more thorough look at individual data removal requests sent by Incogni to individual data brokers, including their request ID, status, and the schedule for automated removal requests when data brokers have not added you to suppression lists.
Custom removals
A “Custom removals” option grants you access to Incogni staff, who will take on individual, custom data removal requests from its customers.
For example, if you find a website that contains your information and has not been included in Incogni’s standard removal system, you can send the link to Incogni, and they will attempt to remove it for you. However, you will need to upgrade to Incogni Unlimited to access this service, and I would say it is only necessary for individuals with very specific data or web page removal needs.
Monthly reports
You do not need to access the Incogni dashboard to stay informed about the progress of your data removal journey. Instead, Incogni sends you monthly reports summarizing the progress of your requests, including how many have been completed and how many are still in progress.
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I think the reports are a real benefit of this service, as I don’t have to do anything in the interim — an email lands in my inbox, I view the report, monitor Incogni’s progress, and then forget about it for another month.
How does Incogni work?
Incogni is an excellent data removal service that aims to tackle data removal requests at scale through automation, backed by in-house human staff specializing in data removal and privacy.
The data removal service focuses on disrupting the flow of consumer data — including PII — that ends up in the hands of data brokers, often without the consent of subjects. This information is then either exposed online for the world to see or sold to other organizations.
By combining automation and human oversight, Incogni targets both public and private data brokers, providing comprehensive coverage of over 420 public and private brokers and more than 3,000 unique domains registered in response to customers’ custom data removal requests.
Also: 9 ways to delete yourself from the internet (and hide your identity online)
Incogni told ZDNET that it completed over 300 million data removal requests in 2025 and that the company’s current trajectory puts it on track to complete over 600 million removal requests in 2026.
Incogni wants to focus on transparency for users, representatives said, and has commissioned audits from Deloitte to confirm its claims. Many new US customers have joined due to concerns about inadequate data privacy laws and current political tensions.
Data removal requests are automatically sent to data brokers once you have signed up for the service. You are given access to a dashboard that shows how many data brokers have been contacted, how many requests have been processed, and how many have been completed. Requests are automatically resent every 60 to 90 days.
“Automation allows us to have streamlined processes in place to not only submit data removal requests but also to process the received confirmations/responses of data brokers and make sure that our users are updated with the outcomes immediately,” Incogni told ZDNET.
“The human oversight with our core functionality is focused on maintaining these systems and running double-checks on a daily basis to make sure that we’re consistently getting our data removal requests processed by data brokers and have all the necessary confirmations.”
Also: How to remove your personal info from Google Search – it’s quick and easy
Geographically, Incogni covers all 50 US states and can also tackle data removal requests in the EU, UK, Northern Ireland, Canada, the Isle of Man, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein.
In addition to reducing your PII exposure and digital footprint, the service also aims to help reduce your spam and robocalls. Cold-calling marketers, scammers, and robocalls can be infuriating as they take up your time and attention, and many customers have reported fewer incidents since signing up, according to Incogni.
ZDNET’s buying advice
Incogni is an excellent data removal service and one that I have tried myself and can recommend without reservation. It’s easy to get up and running, and it allows you to track removals as they’re processed, which is a solid level of transparency. The fact that the company has external audits performed also ensures that your information is safe as the company removes you from data broker lists.
