KRISTIN SHORTEN: How to delete your digital self ... or at least stop being so easy to find
KRISTIN SHORTEN: True digital privacy is fast becoming a luxury — but Australians still have tools to stop their data being scraped and weaponised.
Extreme digital privacy — the ability to make yourself hard to find online and prevent personal data being scraped, sold and weaponised — has become a luxury.
But experts say Australians who fantasise about “deleting themselves” online don’t need to go scorched earth to reduce risk, exposure and vulnerability.
Alec Harris – the boss of global privacy, protection and reputation management firm havenX – says meaningful privacy is increasingly something money can buy.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“In the physical world, think of expensive houses,” he said.
“They are in gated communities with tall trees and a standoff between the road and their door. The average person can’t afford all that privacy.
“It’s like that in the digital domain, too, unfortunately.”
Mr Harris said meaningful privacy can be prohibitively expensive – but it also demands discipline.
“The cost varies quite a bit by the country, the person and the desired end state,” he said.
“The higher end can be in the hundreds of thousands, or more if physical security is also required, but someone can make meaningful progress for much less.
“If you do it yourself, it can be fairly reasonable on the cost side but very taxing on the time side and the process is unforgiving. One mistake can create permanent exposure.”
HavenX provides what it calls “extreme privacy” services for high-net-worth clients, but Harris said most people don’t need total erasure. What they need is to stop being easy targets.
He recommends “pushing back on the system”.
“It’s not digital anarchy or tin foil hat paranoia,” he said.
“It’s limiting the data you share and politely pushing back on what’s being requested.
“It means using burner emails, burner numbers, VPNs, and removing yourself from data broker sites.
“It means living by the principle that ‘if the product is free, then you are the product’.”
While Mr Harris operates at the extreme end of the privacy spectrum, Australian consultants say the same pressures are now flowing into everyday life.
Darren Whiteman, director of Hunterwhite Recoveries & Investigations, said Australians seeking digital footprint security are rarely trying to disappear entirely.
“A realistic goal is not invisibility, but lower risk and better control,” he said.
“For most Australians, that means ensuring information is accurate, reducing casual discoverability, tightening privacy settings, removing unnecessary public links between home, work and family, and understanding how information shared today can persist long-term.
“We increasingly work with families who want to protect their children’s digital footprint early – limiting unnecessary exposure around names, locations, routines and associations before it accumulates in ways that are difficult to reverse later.”
Cybersecurity expert Arash Shaghaghi said Australians chasing total erasure were colliding with three immovable barriers: the shadow footprint, the data broker ecosystem and the institutional paper trail.
“You can certainly move from being a public figure to a private citizen by tightening your privacy settings and making formal requests to organisations to remove your personal data,” he said.
“However, ‘deleting’ yourself suggests you can return to a state of zero data.
“In a world of interconnected digital systems and mandatory government reporting, that button simply doesn’t exist.”
Associate Professor Shaghaghi, from UNSW, said digital privacy was not a switch, but a long-term practice.
“Privacy is a lifestyle, not a setting,” he said.
“You don’t ‘delete’ yourself. You commit to a lifetime of digital hygiene to keep your footprint as small as possible.
“Practically speaking, reducing your digital footprint in Australia is a marathon, not a sprint.”
That marathon involves platform-level decisions, legal requests and ongoing maintenance. Digital privacy is not a one-off task, but experts say starting early can dramatically reduce exposure over time.
You may not be able to erase yourself from the internet entirely. But you can make yourself far harder to find, profile and exploit.
How to delete — or at least minimise — your digital footprint
1. See what’s already out there
Search your full name, phone number and email address across multiple search engines
Repeat searches using quotation marks around your name
Check business registers, old workplace bios, club websites and archived media
Use breach-checking tools such as the website Have I Been Pwned? to see whether your email has appeared in data leaks
2. Delete accounts — don’t just deactivate
Deactivation hides your profile. Deletion removes it from public view.
Permanently delete social media and online accounts you no longer need
Download your data before deleting if you want to keep a record
3. Lock down the accounts you keep
Switch profiles to private
Remove public visibility of contact details, connections and location history
Enable two-factor authentication everywhere
Use strong, unique passwords (a password manager helps)
4. Opt out of Australian data broker sites
Search yourself on sites such as White Pages and similar listing services
Follow each site’s opt-out or removal process
Use a temporary or disposable email address for these requests
Keep a record — information often reappears and may require repeat removal
5. Ask Google to remove sensitive results
Request de-indexing for pages that display your home address, phone number or other sensitive personal information
This removes the result from the search, even if the original content remains online
If content has been removed but still appears in results, request the removal of cached versions
6. Be realistic about what can’t be removed
Some records are legally public and permanent:
Electoral roll information
Court records
Business and licensing registrations
Property titles and historical media reporting
7. Reduce what you share going forward
Avoid posting content that reveals location, routine or family details
Don’t share full names, school names, uniforms or daily patterns
Review app permissions regularly and delete unused apps
Be cautious with competitions, loyalty programs and public petitions
8. Protect children’s digital footprints early
Opt out of schools and clubs posting children’s images publicly
Ask others not to share photos of your children online
Avoid public profiles that connect children’s names, schools and locations
9. Use basic privacy tools
Burner or secondary email addresses for sign-ups
Secondary phone numbers where possible
A VPN when browsing on public or shared networks
Separate work, personal and administrative accounts
10. Know when to seek professional help
Consider expert advice if:
You are navigating separation, divorce or family court
You’ve experienced harassment, stalking or impersonation
You’re entering a public-facing or regulated role
Your home address or family details are easily discoverable
