What is DROP? California’s New Warning Label for Digital Damages

Key Takeaways 

• California’s new Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform (DROP) is a privacy tool, but it serves as a public acknowledgment that personal data trafficking causes real-world harm. 

• DROP helps stop future data sales, but it offers no remedy for people already harmed by data exposure. 

• Data exposure is increasingly a precursor injury, leading to stalking, fraud, discrimination, and physical danger. 

• Personal injury law – not just privacy law – is becoming central to accountability for digital damages. 

• The next wave of lawsuits won’t be about deletion. They’ll be about damage. 

What Is California’s DROP Program?

California’s Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform (DROP) is being framed as a consumer protection tool. It’s a centralized way to tell data brokers to stop selling your personal information. 

More than that, DROP is an official admission by the state that personal data trafficking causes real-world harm; that these “digital damages” are systemic rather than accidental, and that the burden can no longer rest entirely on individuals to protect themselves. 

This moment mirrors inflection points we’ve seen before in personal injury law. Seatbelts reframed auto liability. Asbestos reshaped toxic torts. Lead paint changed premises liability. DROP is the warning-label moment for digital damages caused by the sale of personal data. 

How to Use DROP to Delete Your Data

DROP is designed to streamline requests, but the details matter. Here’s how to use it in a way that actually protects you: 

• Go to California’s official DROP portal and start a new request. 

• Select both options: opt out of the sale or sharing of your data and request deletion. 

• Enter your identifying information carefully, using the details data brokers are most likely to have on file. 

• Confirm your California residency if prompted. 

• Complete any verification steps immediately so the request is processed. 

• Save proof of submission, such as a confirmation page or email receipt. 

While you can submit a request now through the portal, data brokers aren’t required to begin processing deletion requests until August 1, 2026. 

How Does DROP Affect Personal Injury Law?

Journalists and policymakers often treat data misuse as a privacy issue. They debate it like something intangible or reputational. But in practice, data exposure frequently becomes the first step in a chain of physical, financial, and emotional harm. 

Addresses sold by data brokers can lead to stalking or domestic violence escalation. Behavioral data can be used for manipulation, coercion, or financial fraud. Inferred health data can result in insurance denials or employment discrimination. Location data can enable physical tracking, assaults, and even wrongful death. 

DROP helps stop future sales. It does nothing for the people already hurt. 

That’s where personal injury law enters the conversation. 

“This is something we are tracking closely,” says Monica Rothbaum, COO and a Senior Attorney at J&Y Law. “Over the past year, we’ve seen an increase in cases where digital negligence has had direct, devastating real-world consequences. That’s why we are training our team to recognize and litigate these emerging injuries. Together with our clients, we aim to shape what accountability looks like in the digital age.” 

Is Data Exposure a New Kind of Injury?

Yes, and that shift is already underway. Here at J&Y Law, we’re calling it “digital damages.” 

In traditional personal injury cases, harm followed a clear event: a crash, a fall, a defective product. In digital damages cases, data exposure is often the triggering event, and the injury shows up later in the real world. 

This is why data exposure increasingly functions as a precursor injury. It creates foreseeable risk that manifests as physical danger, financial loss, or psychological trauma. The harm is real. The pathway is just longer and harder to see. 

What Comes After DROP?

DROP allows consumers to opt out of future data sales, but it does not address harm that has already occurred. 

There is still no clear legal pathway for people whose lives were already disrupted, endangered, or destroyed by data exposure. No automatic compensation. No built-in accountability. No deterrent strong enough to change behavior at scale. 

That gap – between policy acknowledgment and real-world consequence – is the story. 

California has effectively said: Yes, this causes harm. 

The law has not yet answered: So who pays when that harm occurs? 

The Digital Damages Landscape in 2026

DROP isn’t an isolated development. It’s the next chapter in a broader shift. 

We’ve already seen growing scrutiny around AI accountability, algorithmic decision-making, platform-enabled harm, and corporate duty of care in digital systems. DROP escalates that conversation. 

The question used to be: Who is responsible when digital tools cause harm?
Now it’s: What happens when the state admits harm exists—but offers no compensation or deterrence? 

That escalation is where courts tend to follow. 

Why Opt-Out Tools Won’t Protect Victims of Data-Driven Harm

Opt-out tools are preventative, not corrective. 

They may reduce future risk, but they cannot undo stalking, fraud, lost employment, emotional distress, or physical injury that has already occurred. When harm crosses that threshold, deletion is no longer enough. 

At that point, the question isn’t privacy. It’s accountability. 

Talk to a California Digital Damages Lawyer

With DROP, California has acknowledged that personal data trafficking creates real-world harm. The next phase will involve courts, juries, and litigators determining how digital damages are valued, who bears responsibility, and what deterrence looks like. 

Deleting data is a start. Addressing damage is the next chapter. 

“The state has effectively admitted that data exposure causes real-world harm, but it hasn’t yet provided a legal remedy,” explains Rothbaum. “That gap between recognition and responsibility is exactly where the next wave of litigation will surge. Digital damages are now actionable. And we’ve developed the legal strategies to meet that shift head-on.” 

If you or someone you know has experienced digital damages as a result of data brokerage, AI systems, or online platforms like Roblox, our digital damages lawyers are available to discuss your options.