California DROP: Delete Yourself From 600+ Data Brokers at Once

Key Takeaway:
If you live in California, you can now tell every registered data broker — more than 600 of them — to delete what it holds about you, with one free request that takes about five minutes. It’s called DROP, it’s run by the state’s privacy agency, and since 1 August 2026 brokers have been legally required to act on it. You only file once: brokers must keep deleting your information if they collect it again. It won’t touch companies you deal with directly, like your bank or social media accounts, and some records are legally exempt — but for the people-search and marketing databases that most people never knew existed, it’s the biggest single step you can take.

What DROP Is

DROP stands for the Delete Request and Opt-out Platform. It comes from California’s Delete Act (Senate Bill 362, passed in 2023) and is run by the California Privacy Protection Agency, which now calls itself CalPrivacy.

Before DROP, getting out of data-broker databases meant finding each company, filling in its own form, and repeating the process whenever your details reappeared. DROP replaces that with one request that goes to every broker registered with the state. The platform opened to the public in January 2026, and brokers began processing requests on 1 August 2026.

A “data broker” here has a specific legal meaning: a business that knowingly collects and sells personal information about people it has no direct relationship with. Think of the companies behind people-search sites, marketing lists and location-data resellers — not the shops, apps and services you’ve signed up to yourself.

📝 How to Use It

Go to the official page: privacy.ca.gov/drop. It’s free. Any site charging you to “file your DROP request” is not the state.
Verify that you live in California. CalPrivacy checks residency before the request goes out.
Create your profile with the basic personal details it asks for.
Add optional identifiers. You can include email addresses, phone numbers, your phone’s mobile advertising ID, a connected-TV ID and your car’s VIN. Each one gives brokers another way to find your records, so the more you add, the more they can match — but how much you share is up to you.
Submit, and keep your DROP ID. You get an eight-digit number for checking progress later.

CalPrivacy says the whole thing takes about five minutes. Your details are hashed as soon as you enter them — turned into scrambled strings that brokers can compare against their own records without the state handing them your raw information.

What Happens After You Submit

Brokers download the hashed requests and compare them with what they hold. Where they find a match, they must delete all your personal information, working on a rolling 45-day cycle. And it doesn’t end there: brokers must make sure your information stays deleted if they collect it again later.

You can check results with your DROP ID. Updates can take up to 90 days to appear, and each broker’s result shows as one of these:

Status	What it means
Record Deleted	The broker found you and deleted your information.
Record Opted Out of Sale	The broker stopped selling or sharing your information.
Record Exempted	The broker has a legal basis to keep some or all of it (see below).
Record Not Found	No match with the details you gave. Adding more identifiers can change this.
Pending	The broker hasn’t reported back yet.

What DROP Can’t Remove

Companies you deal with directly. Your bank, your phone company, social networks and online shops aren’t data brokers under the law, because you have a relationship with them. You’d use your normal privacy rights with each one instead.
Legally exempt businesses and data. The definition excludes companies covered by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (such as credit bureaus, for their credit-reporting activity), financial institutions under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, businesses covered by California’s insurance privacy law, and certain health-data handling. That’s where “Record Exempted” comes from.
The original public records. A broker deleting its copy doesn’t remove property or court records from the government sources they were copied from.
Search results. DROP talks to brokers, not to search engines. Old pages can linger in results until they’re recrawled.
Brokers that never registered. DROP reaches the companies on the state’s registry. A broker that should have registered and didn’t is breaking the law — but it won’t receive your request.

What Happens to Brokers That Ignore It

The Delete Act sets the fines. A broker that fails to delete faces an administrative fine of $200 for each deletion request, for each day it goes unhandled — the same daily rate applies to brokers that fail to register at all. Across thousands of requests, that adds up quickly, and brokers must also undergo audits of their compliance.

🗺️ Not in California?

DROP only works for verified California residents. Elsewhere, you’ll usually have to opt out broker by broker. Our free opt-out directory lists the major people-search and data-broker sites with direct links to each opt-out form, so you don’t have to hunt for them.

It’s also worth seeing what a site learns about you before you’ve given it anything at all: What this website already knows about you shows the details your browser hands over to every page you visit.

FAQ

Is DROP really free?

Yes. It’s run by the state of California at privacy.ca.gov. Paid services can help with companies DROP doesn’t cover, but nobody needs to pay to submit a DROP request.

Do I have to submit again every year?

No. CalPrivacy says you only need to submit once, and brokers must keep your information deleted if they collect it again. If you get a new phone number or email address, it’s worth adding it to your profile.

Is it safe to give the state my details?

Your entries are hashed straight away, so brokers receive scrambled values to compare against their own records rather than your raw information. You also choose which optional identifiers to add.

Why does a broker say “Record Not Found”?

It couldn’t match the details in your request to anything it holds. Sometimes that’s genuinely nothing; sometimes it filed you under a different email or phone number. Adding more identifiers gives brokers more to match.

Will this stop spam calls and junk mail?

It can reduce them over time by shrinking the lists marketers buy from brokers, but it won’t stop companies you already do business with, or callers who don’t use brokers at all.

The Short Version

If you’re a California resident, go to privacy.ca.gov/drop, verify your residency, add as many identifiers as you’re comfortable with, and keep your DROP ID. One five-minute request now reaches every registered data broker, they must delete what they match on a 45-day cycle, and they must keep it deleted. Everyone else: work through the opt-out directory.