ONME NEWS WATCH (5-29-26): California unveils ‘DROP’ tool to help residents delete data-broker profiles with one request

As Californians spend a lot of time online, they may not realize how vulnerable they are to data breaches, say experts

California’s new Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, or DROP, gives residents a free, centralized way to tell hundreds of registered data brokers to delete their personal information and stop selling it, as state officials warn that identity theft, scams and large-scale data breaches continue to expose millions of Californians to risk.For years, privacy advocates have argued that one of the biggest gaps in consumer protection was not whether Californians had privacy rights on paper, but whether they could realistically use them. The state’s new Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, launched by the California Privacy Protection Agency earlier this year, is designed to close that gap by replacing a fragmented, broker-by-broker process with a single online request. Through DROP, a California resident can verify eligibility, create a basic profile and submit one deletion request that is sent to more than 500 registered data brokers. According to the state’s privacy portal, data brokers must begin processing those requests starting Aug. 1, 2026, and must delete data within 90 days.