"For years, the state has led the nation in a push for digital privacy, giving residents the right to ask companies to delete their stored personal data. But it's a tall task to contact individual companies or data brokers and request one-by-one deletions. So on Jan. 1, California launched a first-in-the-nation portal that allows residents to wipe away a large part of their digital footprints in one fell swoop."
"The site is dubbed the "Delete Request and Opt-out Platform," or "DROP." It takes a few minutes of clicking, filling out basic forms and verifying contact information. Californians who complete the process will force data brokers to delete much of the information they've collected. And that will give those residents better protection from spam calls, targeted fraud and stalkers, Consumer Reports senior policy analyst Matt Schwartz told SFGATE."
"Under California law, consumers have the right to force a company to delete the personal information it's gathered about them. You could do this by emailing one company at a time - Snapchat, Facebook, Google, etc. - but there are likely hundreds of companies with some piece of your data. And data brokers, who buy and sell this information, are not nearly as well-known as the social media giants."
California launched the Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) on Jan. 1, creating a centralized way for residents to request deletion of personal information from data brokers. The portal consolidates multiple deletion requests into a single process that takes only minutes, requiring clicking, basic forms and contact verification. State law already grants consumers the right to delete personal data, but individual requests to companies and obscure data brokers were burdensome. Data brokers aggregate location, spending and app-signup information and sell it to buyers, fueling advertising, background checks, spam calls, targeted fraud and stalking; DROP forces brokers to remove much of the collected data.
Read at SFGATE
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