The Nation's Strictest Privacy Law Just Took Effect, to Data Brokers’ Chagrin

upstart writes:

Californians can now submit demands requiring 500 brokers to delete their data:

Californians are getting a new, supercharged way to stop data brokers from hoarding and selling their personal information, as a recently enacted law that's among the strictest in the nation took effect at the beginning of the year.

According to the California Privacy Protection Agency, more than 500 companies actively scour all sorts of sources for scraps of information about individuals, then package and store it to sell to marketers, private investigators, and others.

The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog said in 2024 that brokers trawl automakers, tech companies, junk-food restaurants, device makers, and others for financial info, purchases, family situations, eating, exercising, travel, entertainment habits, and just about any other imaginable information belonging to millions of people.

Two years ago, California's Delete Act took effect. It required data brokers to provide residents with a means to obtain a copy of all data pertaining to them and to demand that such information be deleted. Unfortunately, Consumer Watchdog found that only 1 percent of Californians exercised these rights in the first 12 months after the law went into effect. A chief reason: Residents were required to file a separate demand with each broker. With hundreds of companies selling data, the burden was too onerous for most residents to take on.

On January 1, a new law known as DROP (Delete Request and Opt-out Platform) took effect. DROP allows California residents to register a single demand for their data to be deleted and no longer collected in the future. CalPrivacy then forwards it to all brokers.

Starting in August, brokers will have 45 days after receiving the notice to report the status of each deletion request. If any of the brokers' records match the information in the demand, all associated data-including inferences-must be deleted unless legal exemptions such as information provided during one-to-one interactions between the individual and the broker apply. To use DROP, individuals must first prove they're a California resident.

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