How To Remove Personal Info From The Internet?

Today we all use different applications, software, social media, and communication tools and our daily activities are preserved in those platforms. From that perspective, people must have the right to complete or partial erasure of their information, without leaving traces in any database. But how to protect or remove personal info from the Internet?

1. Search Engines

Because we face many issues related to privacy, several countries introduced legislation for the protection of private data. For example, the European Union has established legislation, according to which a person has the right to contact software/application companies, and especially to search engine companies like Google, Yahoo, Bing to remove personal info from the Internet. If in the EU someone wants to remove personal data from the Internet, he/she must present specific addresses to the company, and the company must erase the information from its servers. This can be done if the submitted to-be-removed information is compliant with the appropriate criteria defined by the law.

2. Russian Law

Similar Law exists in Russia. Here, to remove personal info from the internet a person must not submit specific addresses like in the EU, but rather thematics of the information that needs to be deleted. As the erasure is deemed acceptable, the companies must find all websites which contain the relevant information that is subject to removal and erase it forever.

Various governments around the world often gather and keep data regarding peoples’ internet activity for a considerable length of time. In some countries this is done secretly, in others it is implemented in the framework of appropriate legislation. There are different viewpoints about this being a violation of the elementary right to privacy. For example, Russian anti-terrorist law requires telecommunication companies to gather and maintain data for six months on people’s internet activities.

3. Zangi Leaves No Traces of User Data

With the Zangi app, users don’t have to worry that any of their personal messages can be stored in any place other than their own phone. All your messages are kept only on your phone, nullifying any risk that in near or distant future your personal messages can be illegally found and published. And if there is any information that you would like to remove from your communication history, you can do it by simply deleting it from your device and be assured that no data has left a single trace in any reserve database.

4. Personal Information for Targeted Advertising

Another fact concerning people’s personal information on the internet that is a matter of concern for many; companies track people’s internet activity on their pages (searches, visits, visited locations, messages, etc.). This data can be automatically processed and based on the received outcome, companies can direct revenue-generating and targeted advertising to people.

Alternatively, they can simply sell the generated information to third parties, which is also quite a profitable activity. A typical example of this is Facebook, which tracks people’s internet activity both inside and outside of Facebook and uses the information received to create personal profiles used for advertising. There are different perspectives on this issue.

On the one hand, people say that it’s all the same to them whether or not their information will remain private since they have nothing to hide. The other side of the argument can be summarized by the following quote by Edward Snowden, “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” Data security is becoming more and more important as a requirement for communication applications.

People sharing their personal information in applications trust the companies to keep their information private. Nevertheless, Zangi users can use and communicate freely while remaining confident that their messages are kept exclusively in their phones and are not being stored or sold to any third parties. Information security has been and will remain to be, one of Zangi’s most important principles and you don’t have to worry if you should remove personal info from the Internet in the future.