Compartmentalise - so one thread can’t unravel everything
If every account traces back to one email and one phone number, anyone who gets a single thread can pull the whole thing - find you, link your accounts, work outward. Compartmentalising means deliberately keeping separate parts of your life separate, so a leak in one place doesn’t expose the rest. This is a higher-risk step; if someone specific is targeting you, please get specialist help alongside it - the callout at the end has who.
More than one email, on purpose
Keep a private email for banking and government that you never hand out, and a separate public one for shops, sign-ups and newsletters. Then a breach of the public inbox tells an attacker nothing about the accounts that matter.
A second number for the throwaway stuff
A cheap second SIM or a number app for sign-ups, sellers and forms, keeping your real number for people you trust. It blunts SIM-swap targeting and stops your main number being the single key that links everything to you.
Don’t reuse the same handle everywhere
A distinctive username reused across sites lets anyone search it and assemble a map of you in minutes. For accounts you want kept apart, vary the handle - don’t let it be the string that ties your whole online life together.
Keep work and personal genuinely apart
Separate devices where you can, or at least separate browser profiles. Don’t sign in to personal accounts on a work machine someone else administers - or your work accounts on a shared home device. The leak is often in the overlap.
Mind the joins
The same recovery email, the same profile photo, or logging into one identity from the other’s device quietly re-links what you worked to separate. The discipline isn’t in the walls - it’s in not drilling holes between them.
If someone dangerous is targeting you
Do this with specialist help, not alone - and be careful that setting any of it up on a device the other person can see doesn’t itself raise an alarm. Refuge runs the free, 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247, with a dedicated Tech Safety service; Women’s Aid offers live-chat support. In an emergency, call 999.
Last checked: 19 October 2026. Helpline details verified against source on this date.