Dear Colleagues,
On Data Privacy Day, we’re marking the launch of California’s DELETE Request and Opt-Out Platform (DROP)—a first-of-its-kind tool that allows residents to delete their data from every registered data broker in one place. DROP shifts the burden from individuals to companies and reflects a basic truth: data privacy is collective. It cannot be protected one request at a time.
As of 2026, 19 states have passed comprehensive privacy laws, but California is the only state moving toward this kind of one-click action. For the rest of us, deleting our data is a full-time job. Using the Oregon Consumer Data Privacy Act, I recently requested my own data from several brokers. What I received were multiple 40-60 page reports. There were some concrete facts—my address, census tract, IP address—but most were probabilities.
The reports estimated low levels of sleep. Two kids at home. Impulse shopper. Whether I pay cash. What I eat. What I watch. Political affiliation. Engagement with content about reproductive rights, racial justice, and immigrant rights. My stress. My sadness. My attempts to cope.
This kind of inference isn’t new. In 2012, Target famously predicted a teenager’s pregnancy before her family knew. What was once a scandal is now infrastructure. Similar systems shape immigration enforcement, predatory lending, pregnancy surveillance, and the disproportionate policing of Black communities. Inference makes discrimination scalable, enabling population-level targeting without notice or due process. The underlying data may be regulated, but the inference is treated as a proprietary commercial insight.
This power imbalance is why we cannot simply opt-out our way to safety. It’s also why WFN and our members co-created DataWoven, a public, consent-based tool built on the Demographics via Candid dataset that demonstrates a different approach: data shared voluntarily, with clear governance, used for accountability rather than extraction.
Protecting privacy is an act of community care. If you live in California, use DROP. If you live elsewhere, request similar legislation. We invite you to join us in rethinking what data privacy requires—and what’s possible.
Sincerely,
Sara Keilholtz
Women’s Funding Network
Senior Director of Data and Strategic Insights