California's New Data Deletion Platform: How to Delete Your Info From 600+ Brokers

Data brokers operate in the shadows. They buy and sell your personal information—your name, address, phone number, browsing history, shopping habits, and even health data—without your knowledge or consent. These companies make billions by packaging your details and selling them to advertisers, data aggregators, and worse. For years, Californians had almost no recourse. That changed in January 2026 when California launched DROP (Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform), a free online system that lets residents delete their personal data from over 600 data brokers with a single submission.

Here’s how it works: Visit privacy.ca.gov, verify that you’re a California resident, and submit your personal information once. The platform automatically sends deletion requests to all connected data brokers. Starting August 1, 2026, those companies are legally required to match and delete your information within 45 days. The kicker? California is backing this up with serious penalties. Companies that fail to comply face $200-per-day fines for each incident. If a single data broker ignores deletion requests from 100,000 people, that’s $20 million daily. This isn’t a suggestion—it’s enforcement with real teeth. Nearly 350,000 Californians have already signed up since the platform launched, and the state expects that number to grow to 1% of the population within the next month or two.

If you live in California and care about your privacy, identity theft prevention, or limiting how your personal information gets used and sold, this is a tangible step you can take right now. It’s free, it’s simple, and it’s available only to California residents. The August 1 deadline is less than two weeks away. What’s stopping you from taking control of your own data?