Have personal data deleted on the Internet:
We make you digitally invisible.

The unlimited access to information on the World Wide Web has many advantages. However, in the digital age, even a single thoughtless social media post or a weak email password can have existential consequences. It is easy for people who want to harm their victim—hackers, for example, but also so-called “haters” with no significant IT skills—to gain access to personal data and misuse it. For those affected, a long chain of subsequent attacks now begins, starting with harassment and public humiliation and ending with the endangerment of physical and mental well-being.

corma GmbH will ensure that such a horrific scenario does not happen to you. We take care of your digital visibility and support you in protecting your personal data on the Internet.

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Would you like to have Internet entries and personal online information deleted?

You have come to the right place.

Contact our team of experts on digital visibility.
We will get to the bottom of your case of data and identity theft and prevent (further) damage to you.
corma is your leading contact when it comes to having your Internet identity deleted.

Send us an email, use our online form, or

call us at +49 2163 349 00 80

Online Information:
What consequences can publishing my personal data on the net have for me?

The targeted distribution of your personal data is a massive attack on your personal rights and privacy. The danger of attacks by third parties—for example, self-proclaimed enemies or stalkers—is particularly high for people who are in the public eye. This is because anyone who knows the contact details or perhaps even the private address of a person can do substantial damage with this information, from placing unwanted orders at the expense of the person concerned, to telephone terrorism and so-called swatting, to identity theft.

No less dangerous is the distribution of private image material, such as intimate photographs. These are strategically abused by perpetrators in order to either blackmail the victim or damage him or her on a social level in such a way that his or her professional and social standing are threatened, thereby putting his or her entire existence at risk.

Personal data on the Internet:
How do offenders obtain private information?

Today, a poorly secured email account, a social media account set to “public,” or even an ill-considered posted image (one that reveals the location of your private home, for example) is enough to enable an offender to access your personal data. The following examples illustrate the extent to which this can take place:

At the end of 2018, mobile phone numbers, addresses, ID cards, letters, and credit card information of politicians and celebrities were published on the social media platform Twitter (source t3n). What initially looked like a major hacker attack ultimately turned out to be a case of doxing—a misuse of data aimed at "punishing" the victims for their work or their public statements.

The German-language YouTube scene has been complaining for some time about attacks on the privacy of individual channel operators. YouTuber Simon Unge, for example, has been forced to change his place of residence and ultimately even leave the country after multiple attacks by his fans. The situation of the controversial YouTuber dragonlord is similarly appalling; the self-inflicted publication of his private address has led to an unprecedented spiral of escalation.

But even people with a much lower public reach are not safe from identity theft, dissemination of their personal data, or doxing—especially since once such information has appeared on the Internet, it can be downloaded by any unauthorized person and is difficult to remove.

Doxing – Personal data protection in acute danger

It is often public figures who are affected by the misuse and dissemination of their personal data on the Internet. The perpetrators specifically target information that the victim tries to keep secret under all circumstances, such as contact details, addresses, and private pictures and videos, and including bank details or account statements as well.

What is doxing?

The term doxing (from docs, an abbreviation for documents), also known as doxxing in some circles, denotes the Internet-based collection of personal information, usually with malicious intent. The motive is not to reveal secret information in the service of the public interest, but to put pressure on the victim to intimidate or expose him.

Perpetrators often also see doxing as a means of taking the law into their own hands, e.g., by identifying anonymous persons, who are frequently exposed to threats, harassment, and other attacks as a result. The perverseness of doxing attacks is the fact that not even IT knowledge is required; often a simple Google search is sufficient to obtain personal data.

What causes doxing attacks on a victim?

In many cases, doxing attacks are politically motivated, whether to punish the victim for his or her opinion or to silence him or her. Not only politicians and activists but also employees of law enforcement agencies, judges, attorneys, journalists, celebrities, and people with social or financial influence commonly become the target of data thieves.

The consequences are often serious and range from financial losses and (multiple) forced changes of residence to public humiliation, threats, and endangerment in one’s personal environment. All of this frequently triggers fear of persecution and a feeling of powerlessness and sometimes considerably restricts the victim’s personal freedom and quality of life.

Identity theft as a further consequence of the misuse of personal data on the Internet

In identity theft and phishing, criminals use the victim’s online information to gain access to their finances. These perpetrators are therefore primarily interested in accessing account-related data, with the help of which they can transfer funds and cause financial damage to the victim. Unfortunately, many victims make it easy for such perpetrators to gather enough information from the Internet to pretend to be someone else—in order to then set up a credit line for this person, for example.

Together, we can make it harder for these criminals to do their job. Although there is never 100% protection against identity theft, we can make you a costly and therefore unattractive target. In the end, even our team of digital visibility experts unfortunately can’t stop all cybercrime—but we can prevent you from becoming a victim.

Delete personal data on the Internet
What we can do for you

The services of corma GmbH do not aim to delete individual unwanted entries. Rather, we give people who have an increased need for digital security the chance to disappear from the net as far as possible. For this purpose, we first determine where personal data about you are distributed on the Internet. This process requires a detailed online search and provides a good indication of the steps that will be necessary to delete your “online footprint.” Only then can the corresponding (Google) entries be deleted.

Making my data digitally invisible:
Can I do that myself?

Of course, it is also possible to protect your personal data on the Internet on your own initiative—but it requires a good deal of research and therefore time. When searching for your online information, you should take the following criteria into account:

  • Person (full name via Google search), if necessary in combination with location information for frequently occurring names
  • Alias or username
  • Contact details (email addresses, telephone numbers)
  • Social media accounts
  • etc.

All findings should be thoroughly documented so that you have a detailed guide available later when you delete the information.

Warning!

Deleting personal data on your own initiative is usually only a superficial measure. In many cases, the origin of the information lies much deeper. This is because self-research typically only makes use of Google and similar search engines, not the Deep Web and other sources that are difficult to access. Therefore, it is better to leave your digital visibility project to an experienced professional. In this context, we would like to invite you to take a look at our blog series on online reputation to learn more about our services.

Delete personal data:
Who is our online information elimination service for?

Personal data protection is one of our core competencies. Our offer to delete personal data on the Internet is directed at all persons who fear to become the target of data thieves and thus also the target of subsequent attacks by third parties (fraud, blackmail, stalking; sometimes even physical violence). Of course, we also look after clients who are concerned about their privacy on the Internet and want to protect it. Regardless of which of these two categories you fall into, the earlier you work with us, the greater the protection your personal data will have. The less information about you is circulating from the beginning, the easier it is to protect or restore your privacy.

Have personal data deleted on the Internet:
This is how we proceed

For deleting personal data from the Internet, we rely on an experienced network of experts and proven strategic measures. Each project is divided into five steps:

Step 1
Pre-assessment/Inventory of your online information

Using continuously updated workflows, we first carry out a comprehensive inventory. This includes queries in the following areas:

  • Search engines: Google, Bing, and Yandex searches (including image search)
  • Groups and forums: Google Groups and Clearnet forums
  • Ancestry websites: Ancestry and FamilyTree
  • Professional (paid) person search engines
  • Location-based searches.

In this first part, we determine the effort required for the entire project. In addition, we determine how much personal data exists about you on the Internet, and we attempt to make the first deletions directly. The inventory also includes a complete background check, which consists of two phases:

  1. Searches of public Internet websites, through which you can be found by anyone
  2. Requests for information and details about you that are stored in private databases. These are usually not visible to the typical Internet user.

Step 2
Background check of personal data on the Internet

Following the inventory, we will look at social networks and examine what is known about you there. This step includes all known networks, such as:

Social media plattforms
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Xing
  • many others
People search engines
  • Intelius
  • Pipl
  • Spokeo
  • ThatsThem
  • ZabaSearch
  • many others
Rating portals
  • BizzWatch
  • golocal
  • kununu
  • Yelp
  • many others

In addition, we review websites that collect and publicly offer “leaked” information, such as dehashed.com. Depending on the extent of the information leakage, we may also look for photos that were published against your will. For this purpose, we use our professional research tools such as Maltego and Social Links Transformations; these allow us to access a variety of databases and social networks.

As part of the background check, we also examine so-called data brokers. These are certain companies that conduct data mining; i.e., they collect and sell personal information on the Internet. We find out what information these companies have collected about you. In most cases, this information is not passed on publicly, but they do not offer any opt-out solution. For you as a data subject, this means that you can neither object to the storage of your data nor request its deletion.

Step 3
Deletion of personal data on the Internet

This step is usually uncomplicated, as more and more companies and websites are offering cancellation forms or so-called opt-out options. We carry out the appropriate measures for you.

With few exceptions, we are able to delete the personal data of our clients on the Internet. In special cases, we also offer you the collaboration of specialist attorneys, which usually achieves the desired ends. If it does not, however, there is still the possibility of having the corresponding entries adjusted by experts in search engine optimization (SEO): With their help, the unwanted entries can at least be banished to the back pages of the search engines, where visibility tends toward zero.

Deletion of personal data on the Internet

Step 4
Documentation of digital visibility

All queries and hits are documented in our software solution in an evidentiary manner. We use this not only to initiate the deletion of your online information but also to create a detailed report that is recognized by the courts.

Step 5
Prevention: Preventing personal data from entering the Internet from the very beginning

In order to effectively prevent the dissemination and misuse of your personal information going forward, it is of course important that you become more careful with your data on the Internet and, if necessary, rethink your behavior in this regard. We will inform you how personal information becomes public and provide you with important rules of conduct to prevent future information leaks. Of course, we also offer intensive individual coaching on the topics of privacy and online protection.

With corma, you can be sure that no personal data will ever enter the Internet again against your will and that private information will remain private.

Have personal data deleted on the Internet:
What costs should I expect?

Personal data protection proposals vary from case to case and always represent an individualized undertaking that requires its own planning and implementation strategies. Accordingly, the costs vary from project to project. In order to give you a basic idea of the required effort, we have compiled a high-level breakdown:

Phase 1

Each large project starts with a net advance payment of 1,500 euros. Next, a comprehensive inventory (reputation audit) is carried out, which shows the extent of the order and the amount of data that needs to be removed. We then delete personal data from the Internet and mark the more complicated information for later review.

Phase 2

If the deletion request is very extensive or if a serious case requires a substantial amount of information to be removed or hidden, the project goes to phase 2. However, as already mentioned, this varies from order to order and will depend on the initial situation.

For customers who only want their personal data to be removed from personal search pages (e.g., Pipl, Yasni, ZoomInfo), we can cover the necessary effort in most cases by advance payment. Before we start deleting your data from the Internet, you will of course receive a detailed cost estimate, which will specify exactly which services will be provided and the costs that will apply.

Protecting personal data on the Internet:
That's the reason for corma.

Why is corma the best partner for your digital (in)visibility? Because we deliver what we promise. Thanks to years of experience and investigations in the field of online information, we have a highly professional team for whom your personal data protection will be a top priority. We will do everything in our power to protect you and your personal data on the Internet and make you digitally invisible.

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corma Training

+49 2163 349 00 80

[email protected]

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41379 Brüggen

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