The Delete Act (SB 362) has been signed into law by California governor Gavin Newsom, as part of an effort to protect citizens’ online rights.

California residents need only make a single request to get all their data scrubbed from data brokers’ records. Previously, residents could still request that their data was deleted, but they were forced to submit a request to individual companies to achieve it. 

In order to make the new requirements possible, the legislation also mandates that all data brokers register with the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA), which would create a single form for residents to request that their data is deleted.

Data brokers are companies that gather and sell people's personal information, such as address, age or marital status. They include credit-reporting agencies, people-search sites and data analytics firms that work with political campaigns.

“Data brokers possess thousands of data points on each and every...