How to Delete Your Personal Data in Australia: Practical Tips

There is no “Delete my data” in button in Australia. It is a set of different doors, and some of them don’t open.

The Privacy Act 1988 lets you access and correct much of what a covered organisation holds. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) oversees that system. The Act does not give you a general legal right to force every company to wipe your personal information.

The government has proposed a narrower right to erasure aimed at social media and search companies. That proposal is not yet law. Consultation on the draft closes 18 September 2026. Details are in our Australia’s Privacy Law Changes article.

What you can do this month is still substantial – if you know which door to knock on.

Quick answer: Start with the accounts you control – Google, Apple, Meta, Microsoft. Use Google’s Results about you tool to hide contact details from Search. Cancel My Health Record if you do not want a national health file. Put personal numbers on the Do Not Call Register. Unsubscribe from email and SMS. Write to organisations and ask them to stop marketing and to destroy information they no longer need. Correct or ban credit files with Equifax and Experian. Challenge rental-database listings. Then stop feeding new data from your phone and PC.

What you can and cannot force

You can usually: delete or switch off accounts you control; ask Google to hide phone numbers, addresses, emails and ID numbers from Search; cancel My Health Record; opt out of most telemarketing, email and SMS marketing; correct errors on a credit file or place a fraud ban; challenge a wrong or expired tenancy-database listing; ask a covered organisation to destroy information it no longer needs.

You ‘generally’ cannot: force a news site to unpublish a lawful article; remove the original page from the web just because Google hid the result; delete the file sitting in your GP’s practice software by cancelling My Health Record; stop charity, political and some research calls; hide an ASIC director listing if you are a director; erase public court judgments; leave the electoral roll if you are eligible (you can become a silent elector so your address is not public); demand a European-style wipe from every retailer and broker.

The OAIC’s 2026 survey found 93% of Australians support a legal deletion right. A good approach is to treat the draft right as a future extra door – not the plan for this month.

1. The accounts you control

Do these first. They are free and work well, and note some of the paths below may change.

Google. Open myaccount.google.com → Data & privacy. Download your data with Takeout, then delete individual services or the whole account. Separately open Results about you and request removal of Search results that show your phone, address, email or ID numbers. That tool has been available in Australia since 2024. Approval is not automatic. News, government and court pages are usually left up. Hiding a result is not the same as deleting the original page.

Also turn off Web & App Activity, Location History and ad personalisation if you are keeping the account. Delete old Google Photos albums you never meant to keep, and check Google Contacts for numbers you synced years ago.

Apple. appleid.apple.com → Data and privacy. Download a copy. Switch off iCloud backups and photo sync you do not need. Deleting the Apple ID is the hard stop – plan the move first, or you can lock yourself out of a device.

Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp). Accounts Centre → Your information. Download, then deactivate or delete. Deactivation is reversible. Deletion has a waiting period. WhatsApp backups in Google Drive or iCloud are a separate copy – delete those too. Old Facebook photos tagged by other people will not vanish when you delete your account; you can ask the friend to untag or take the photo down.

Microsoft. account.microsoft.com → Privacy. Export, then close the account if you are leaving Outlook or OneDrive.

TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Snapchat, Reddit. Each has a download-then-delete path in settings. LinkedIn stays visible to recruiters until the account is actually closed, not just paused. SEEK and Indeed resumés are their own copies – close or hide those separately.

New sign-ups. Use an email alias (Proton makes this easy) so the next online shopping site never gets your real inbox. Hide My Email on Apple does the same job on iPhone.

2. Search results and people-search pages

Google Search is a catalogue, not the warehouse.

1. Results about you, or “Remove this result” on the three-dot menu next to a result.
2. Google’s personal information removal form for tax file numbers, bank details, medical records, home address bundled with your name, and doxing.
3. Separate forms for non-consensual intimate images and for court-ordered legal removals.
4. Email the site that hosts the page and ask them to take it down. Then ask Google to refresh the re-sult.

Search your own name in “quote marks” with “Australia” and/or your suburb. Also your “phone#”, then try your old mobile number on its own. Check:

• White Pages and Finder
• leftover business directories (TrueLocal, Hotfrog and similar)
• old forum signatures
• Strava and other fitness heatmaps
• Domain, realestate.com.au and old “sold” pages that list an owner name
• Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace and car-sales ads you forgot to take down
• international people search sites that scrape Australian numbers

Additionally there are paid “data brokers” services. Results are mixed and listings often return. Use them as a helper, not a substitute for the official tools.

3. Telemarketing, email, SMS and junk mail

Three different rules; good practice to use all three.

Phone – Do Not Call Register. donotcall.gov.au or 1300 792 958. Free. Personal home, mobile and fax numbers. Takes up to 30 days. Stays on until you remove it. It does not block the phone; it requires marketers to wash their lists. Charities, political parties, educational institutions and some researchers can still call. You can still tell those callers to stop and they must honour that opt-out.

Email and SMS – under the Australian Spam Act. Every commercial message must carry a working unsubscribe. They have five business days to action it. Reply STOP to SMS. If unsubscribe is broken, report it to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

Everything else that uses your information to market to you (Australian Privacy Principle 7). Write: “Stop using and disclosing my personal information for direct marketing, including marketing by others. Tell me the source of my information.” They must do it within a reasonable time, for free, and generally answer the source question within about 30 days. This covers a lot of postal mail and some targeted marketing the Spam Act does not reach.

Send that same line to loyalty programs you no longer use: such as Flybuys, Everyday Rewards, Velocity, manufacturer “warranty” lists, old real estate alerts, energy and insurance “quotes”.

4. Health data

My Health Record (the national file). Cancel it through myGov → My Health Record → Profile & Settings → Cancel My Health Record, or call 1800 723 471. Official guidance is that the record and backups are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. Healthcare providers will not see it, including in an emergency. If you are an authorised representative for a child, some identifying information about you is kept so you can still open their record. You can reregister later; as the new file starts empty.

Cancelling is a real privacy choice. It is also a clinical choice. A Record Access Code is the middle path if you want the file to exist for emergencies but not for every provider.

Your GP, specialist, dentist, pathology, private hospital. Those files live in the clinic’s software. Cancelling your My Health Record does not touch them. You can request access and correction. Asking a clinic to destroy a current clinical record is often refused because they have professional and legal duties to keep it. You can still ask them to limit who they disclose it to, and to destroy copies they no longer need for care or law.

5. Government, tax and identity

myGov. You cannot meaningfully delete myGov if you use Centrelink, Medicare or the ATO. You can drop unused linked services, sign out old devices, and put a passkey or authenticator app on the account.

IDLock (trial later in 2026, and planned for myGov in 2027) will let you block and monitor use of a licence or passport in online checks. That is a lock, not a deletion. It’s still draft until Parliament passes it.

ATO / tax file number. Report suspected tax-identity theft. You cannot delete a tax file number.

Electoral roll. If you are eligible you generally must stay enrolled. You can apply to be a silent elector so your address is not on the public roll.

ASIC director and company data. Public by design if you hold those roles.

Freedom of Information is for access to government documents, not a general delete button.

6. Credit files and tenant databases

For Credit – Australia options are Equifax and Experian, noting you cannot delete a legitimate credit history. You can get a free report, demand correction of errors, and place a free 21-day ban if you are at risk of fraud, then extend it.

As of 1 April 2026, Experian absorbed illion’s consumer credit reporting. MoneySmart lists two bodies only. Good practice is to cover both:

1. Equifax – 13 8332 or via equifax.com.au
2. Experian – 1300 783 684 or via experian.com.au. Note: if you placed an old ban with illion before April 2026, place a new ban with Experian. Numbers and the ban process sit in our What to Do After a Data Breach article.

For Tenancy databases (TICA and others). Listings must generally come off after three years. Wrong, in-complete or out-of-date listings can be challenged sooner: write to the listing agent, then the operator, then your state tribunal. TICA often wants a posted access form rather than a phone call. Keep copies.

7. The letter that still works

For any APP (Australian Privacy Principles) covered organisation – retailer, broker, club, old employer database, private college – send one short email. For example, covering:

1. “Provide a copy of the personal information you hold about me.”
2. “Correct anything that is wrong.”
3. “You no longer need this information for the purpose you collected it. Destroy it or deidentify it and confirm in writing.”
4. “Stop using my information for direct marketing, including marketing by others. Tell me the source.”

Give them 30 days. Then the OAIC if they ignore you. This will not wipe a bank’s legally required records. It will wipe a surprising number of “we might market to you later” spreadsheets.

If you have given a bank or energy company permission to share data under the Consumer Data Right, withdraw that permission in their app as well.

8. Children

The under-16 social media restriction is already in force. The Children’s Online Privacy Code must be registered by 10 December 2026 and is expected to include deletion rights for children’s information on many services.

Until then: delete the account as the parent or authorised person, remove the child from family sharing you do not want, and do not build a new Google or Apple identity for a child unless you accept that identity lasting years. Check school apps, sports clubs and old class WhatsApp groups as well.

9. What will not die

Public court lists, news archives, ASIC roles, property titles, the fact of electoral enrolment, telco metadata kept for two years, and backups sitting in a clinic or a cloud region you never heard of. Chasing those is how people burn six months. Our advice is to spend the six months cutting the next copies instead.

10. Stop creating the next copy

Deletion is archaeology, prevention is cheaper.

• Different strong passwords and email aliases for new sign-ups
• A tracker-blocking browser
• An app-permission audit
• A private phone that does not send Google telemetry by default
• A private laptop that does not report home to Microsoft

Common questions

Is there a right to erasure in Australia in 2026?

Not as a general law against every organisation. A limited right aimed at social media and search companies was announced on 31 August 2026 and is still draft. Consultation closes 18 September 2026. News publishers would be exempt.

How do I delete myself from Google in Australia?

Use Results about you and the personal information removal tools. That hides Search results. It does not delete the original page.

Can I delete My Health Record?

Yes. Cancel via myGov or 1800 723 471. Official guidance is that the national record is permanently deleted. Your GP’s own file remains.

Does the Do Not Call Register stop all calls?

No. It stops most commercial telemarketing after 30 days. Charities, political parties and some researchers are exempt. You can still tell those callers to stop.

How do I stop emails and SMS?

Unsubscribe, or reply STOP. Report broken unsubscribe tools to ACMA. Use Australian Privacy Principle 7 for marketing the Spam Act does not cover.

Can I wipe my credit file?

No. You can correct errors and place a fraud ban with Equifax and Experian.

How do I get off TICA?

Ask for a copy, challenge errors, wait out the three-year limit, or apply to your state tribunal. Write to the listing agent first.

Will deleting accounts hide me from data brokers?

Partly, and only for a while. Brokers rescrape. Combine deletion with less new data leaving your devices.

Final thoughts

Australia will not give you a “delete-everything” switch in 2026. It already gives you enough doors to empty most of the cupboards that actually annoy you: the inboxes, the directories, the marketing lists, the national health file you may have never wanted, the search results that print your mobile number.

Walk through those doors, then try to stop leaving the same files on the table.

[Last updated: 23 August 2026. Educational only – not legal advice.]

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