If you’ve sent a deletion request through California’s DROP tool, you’ve probably seen a one-word result next to each data broker. It’s easy to read “Deleted” as “gone” and “Record not found” as “good news.” The state’s own explanations are a little more careful than that, so I went through them.
Quick background: DROP is the state’s free tool that sends one deletion request to the data brokers registered in California, more than 500 of them. Brokers had to start processing requests on August 1, 2026. Before that, everything showed as pending.
The five statuses
- Pending. The broker hasn’t processed your request yet. That’s not a yes or a no. The state says updates can take up to 90 days to show up.
- Deleted. The broker matched your information and deleted what the law requires it to delete. The state says the non-exempt information. That is not necessarily every record.
- Exempted. The broker found you but may keep the information under a legal exemption. The data is still there.
- Opted out. The broker may still hold your information, but it can no longer sell or share it. The state describes this status in two ways, one on its consumer page and one in its broker documentation, and I’d read it as “stopped selling, not erased.”
- Record not found. The broker either has no information about you or couldn’t match you using the details you gave. You can add more details to your request at any time. The state says optional details such as a mobile advertising ID, a connected TV ID or a vehicle identification number can help with matching.
What it keeps checking
After the first pass, brokers are supposed to re-check on a rolling basis, at least every 45 days, and delete newly matching data. That’s the part I like: you submit once, and the state expects the brokers to keep checking. Starting January 1, 2027, brokers also have to process deletion requests within 30 days, according to the state’s broker page.
What DROP doesn’t cover
The state is clear about the edges. DROP doesn’t reach information you gave a business directly, like signing up for its offers. It doesn’t force deletion of exempt data. It doesn’t cover publicly available data. And it only reaches brokers that are registered.
What I’d do with this
If you’re in California and haven’t used DROP, it’s free, and it’s the state’s own tool. If you have, check the status by broker with your eight-digit DROP ID, and don’t share that ID. If a broker shows “Record not found,” consider whether adding more details would help. If it shows “Exempted” or “Opted out,” that is the broker’s own report that it still has something, so a clean-looking list can still hide data that’s out there.
A status is what a broker reports back. It isn’t proof that your information is off the internet, and I can’t promise that for any broker. I’m not a lawyer; this is general information, not legal advice.
Leave a Reply