Incogni is a subscription-based, automated personal information removal service that offers to help users get their personal data removed from

data broker A data broker is an individual or company that specializes in collecting personal data (such as income, ethnicity, political beliefs, or geolocation data) or data about people, mostly from public records but sometimes sourced privately, and sell ...

s and other companies that may store such data. Incogni was developed in 2021 by Surfshark, a company primarily known for its

VPN Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not c ...

service. The service’s servers are located in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Technology

Incogni acts as a privacy proxy, sending data-removal requests to a wide range of data brokers on behalf of its users. Its main purpose is to delete personal information, such as email addresses, names, addresses and phone numbers from the databases of such brokers. The service is fully automated, requiring little-to-no interaction from users after the initial setup. As of April 2025, Incogni covered about 200 data brokers.

Availability

Incogni is more likely to be effective in regions with effective data protection legislation in place, such as the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

Liechtenstein Liechtenstein (, ; ; ), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein ( ), is a Landlocked country#Doubly landlocked, doubly landlocked Swiss Standard German, German-speaking microstate in the Central European Alps, between Austria in the east ...

and

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. These regions require compliance with key data protection regulations, such as the

GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), abbreviated GDPR, is a European Union regulation on information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of ...

, the CCPA and

PIPEDA The ''Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act'' (PIPEDA; ) is a Canadian law relating to data privacy. It governs how private sector organizations collect, use and disclose personal information in the course of commercial bu ...

Comments

Since its inception, Incogni has received generally positive reviews, with critics praising it for its simplicity, efficiency in sending data-removal requests, and automated functionality. The service has received positive reviews from

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on account of its "reasonable price" and "decent array of features" and from Comparitech on account of its "simple signup process", the fact that it "handles multiple official data removal requests on your behalf" and "provides you with visibility into data brokers’ responses". Noted limitations include the relatively small number of relevant data brokers compared to the massive data-brokerage industry, and that it does not confirm whether or not data brokers comply with requests for data removal. The lack of a free trial or free version has also been mentioned as a drawback, although Incogni does offer a 30-day, money-back guarantee.

References

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