California Just Made It Way Easier to Delete Your Data From Hundreds of Companies

Sacramento residents have a new weapon in the fight against unwanted spam, scams, and identity theft — and it won’t cost them a dime. The California Privacy Protection Agency just launched DROP (the Delete Request and Opt Out Platform), a free tool that lets you scrub your personal information from hundreds of data brokers with essentially one click.

Here’s the problem DROP solves: right now, there are close to 600 data brokers operating in California — companies you’ve never heard of and never agreed to do business with — collecting and selling your contact information, location data, and other personal details to anyone willing to pay. Asking someone to manually contact each of those companies to delete their data? That’s a 10-day nightmare. Doing it through DROP? About five or six minutes of your time.

Starting August 1st, registered data brokers will begin processing deletion requests every 45 days. The system is built with serious teeth, too: if companies fail to delete your information, the California Privacy Protection Agency can hit them with fines of $200 per day per consumer. For a platform with hundreds of thousands of Californians registered, that’s a fine that could reach tens of millions of dollars overnight. Translation: data brokers have enormous incentive to play ball.

The setup is straightforward. You head to privacy.ca.gov/drop, verify you’re a California resident, submit some basic personal information, and hit send. The state stores your data in encrypted form, and participating data brokers do the same before matching and deleting. They never actually learn who you are — just that your encrypted profile matches a record in their system.

If you’re tired of identity theft attempts, text message scams, and endless spam calls targeting you specifically, this is worth five minutes of your time. And if you’re in the Sacramento area this weekend, the California Privacy Protection Agency will have a booth at the Greater Sacramento Urban League’s Juneteenth Celebration 4K Run (Saturday, 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at 3800 W. Land Park Drive) where you can learn more or get help signing up on the spot.