How to act on NordVPN's Digital footprint action plan, step by step

This item tells you whether leaks were found for the address, and offers a button to add more information to monitor. Either way:

1. Add your other email addresses to Nord's monitoring, if your plan allows. Old addresses often hold the most forgotten accounts.
2. Check each address somewhere else too. No leak database is complete. Our Have I Been Pwned guide explains a free second check.
3. If a leak is listed, change that account's password, and every other account where you used the same password. Turn on multi-factor authentication. See what to do if your email is in a data breach.

This is the item Nord gives the least help with: a sentence of advice and a list of service names. Work through the list like this.

1. Check it is yours. Open the profile card. If the name, photo or account ID is not you, skip it.
2. Decide keep or close. Keep accounts you use or need for records, such as email, banking, myGov, health and tax. Close accounts you no longer use.
3. For accounts you keep: set a unique password, turn on multi-factor authentication, check the recovery email and phone, and make the profile private or remove details you do not need public (birthday, phone, location, workplace).
4. For accounts you close: download anything you need, cancel paid plans, remove saved cards, then use the company's official delete page. Choose delete, not deactivate.
5. Keep a record. Save the confirmation email or reference number. Some services wait 7 to 60 days before the deletion is final, and signing back in can cancel it.

We read the help pages for Google, Microsoft, Apple, Spotify and Dropbox on 15 November 2026, and we summarise their steps. For Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and Amazon we give the official link only, because we did not read those pages. Services change these pages often, so follow the page itself.

For a service not listed here, look under Settings, then Account or Privacy, for delete or close account. Directories such as JustDeleteMe can point you to the right page. Check you are on the company's own site before you sign in. If there is no delete option, our guide to deleting old accounts has a request you can copy and send.

1. Your phone. On iPhone, open Settings, then Privacy & Security, and check location, contacts, photos, microphone and camera, one at a time. On Android, open Settings and look for the permission manager under privacy (the name varies by phone maker). Turn off access an app does not need.
2. Apps connected to your Google account. Google's third-party connections page lists apps you signed in to with Google or gave access to. Remove the ones you do not use. Do the same in your Apple and Microsoft account settings.
3. Remember: removing a connection stops the app using your Google sign-in. It does not delete your account at that app. Close that separately.

1. Turn on your browser's tracking protection. Safari, Firefox and other browsers have settings that block cross-site tracking. Check they are on.
2. Use Nord's tracker blocker if you pay for it. The action plan links to it.
3. Turn off ad personalisation in your Google and Meta account settings, so less of your activity is used to target you.

Tracker blocking reduces what is collected from now on. It does not remove what companies already hold, which is why item 2 matters more.

In The Event Of builds the list for item 2 from your inbox. You connect Gmail or Outlook, and it reads the sender, subject, date and delivery details of your emails. It may also process a short Gmail preview without storing it, and it never stores the rest of the email. It lists the services that appear linked to you, shows known breach exposure, and lets you track what you have done.

It does not close accounts or change passwords for you. You decide what to close, and you close it with each service, using steps like the ones on this page. It will not find every account.

Back to the overview: NordVPN Digital footprint review. Unsure about your score? Read what your privacy risk score means.