Cybersecurity company Surfshark has announced its plans to develop a new digital privacy product Incogni that will help wipe broker-owned personal data on behalf of a user. Upon the customers' request, the tool will identify and communicate with chosen broker companies that might have a hold of their personal information. Currently, there are over 4,000 data brokering companies worldwide with leading names owning data on hundreds of millions of consumers, some boasting up to 1500 data points per consumer. 

"In the discourse of personal data protection, data brokers are often left overlooked despite the massive scale of sensitive information they possess. Essentially, these companies collect information such as public records, online activity, and purchase history, aggregate that data and later resell it to other entities," - says Vytautas Kaziukonis, Chief Executive Officer of Surfshark. "Witnessing exponential growth in data privacy misuse, we seek to empower privacy-minded people to oversee their digital presence better than ever before." 

Surfshark's study shows that 30 out of 491 reviewed biggest data brokers have been affected by data breaches in the past one or multiple times, resulting in the average loss of 125M data points. This leaked information includes names, surnames, phone numbers, e-mails, and even social security numbers. 

Even though many data broker companies guarantee an option to opt out from data collection, the manual method of contacting hundreds of firms is highly time-consuming. Incogni will automate these processes by handling the research, follow-up requests, or unjustifiable rejections of appeals to make the process hassle-free. The new tool will also have built-in real-time status updates so that the user can track the progress of the removal process.

Set to be released by the end of summer 2021, the tool already has a waiting list for those eager to minimize their digital footprint online - they will have a chance to try the brand new product free of charge.

The Incogni tool is the newest addition to Surfshark's set of privacy protection tools, which includes data breach alert, tracker blocker CleanWeb, and a private plus ad-free search tool Surfshark Search.