A new one-stop shop to ask data brokers to delete your personal information.

Well, in California, at least.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Stephanie Hughes.

The 39.4 million people who live in the state of California now have a new tool where they can request that data brokers delete their personal information.

That includes their search histories, social security numbers, where they work.

The tool is called the delete request and opt-out platform.

It does have an acronym, of course, drop.

It was mandated by a 2023 state law called the Delete Act.

Data brokers have until August to start processing these requests.

Nicole Turner-Lee, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says it could limit the sale of our information.

I think this is one part of a longer trail of ensuring consumer privacy and protection,

particularly for residents of the state of California.

And honestly, I think if the model works quite well,

I've always said that California is its own country.

And we may actually learn stuff from this.

I mean, I think it's really clear to many people that this has to be done. But I want to really caution people that there's still a lot of information surveillance going on out there, folks. You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be through a data broker. Sometimes it's through our own government who is using their authority to be able to surveil your data for whatever reason when it comes to government application eligibility and other things. We have to continue to wrestle

with the fact that without very clear legislation at the national level to avert, you know,

data brokers, a lot of those directives have failed over the years. And without a national data privacy standard, you know, data brokers. A lot of those directives have failed over the years. And without a

national data privacy standard, you know, California is filling a gap, but we really have a big

hole that we need to fill that will protect consumer privacy. Yeah, and I'm thinking about this,

you know, I don't live in California, but if I did, I have one personal email address that is

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