What is DROP, and am I eligible?

DROP — the Delete Request and Opt-out Platform — is run by the California Privacy Protection Agency under the state’s DELETE Act. One request reaches every data broker registered in California, which is several hundred: far more than any removal service holds forms for.

Since 1 August 2026, registered brokers are legally obliged to honour it.

Am I eligible?

You need to be a California resident. The CPPA verifies residency itself as part of the request — Bighound isn’t involved in that and never sees your identity documents.

If your address isn’t in California, Bighound hides the DROP panel entirely. Showing it to you would be advertising a door you can’t open.

Caution

Do not put a California address you don’t live at on a DROP request. It’s a sworn request to a state agency, the agency verifies residency, and a false one is fraud against the regulator whose protection you’re trying to invoke.

The clock

Brokers get up to 45 days to collect your request from the platform, then up to 90 days to act on it. Worst case, 135 days end to end. Bighound tracks that deadline once you record your reference number.

What Bighound does and doesn’t do

We can’t file it for you — the state verifies your identity directly, by design. What we do is show you how much of your exposure a single DROP request would cover, hand you the link, and then watch the statutory clock so you know when they’re overdue.