A data broker is any organization that gathers people's information for the purpose of sale. Data brokers gather your information from many different sources - including, but not limited to social media platforms, web beacons and trackers, form submissions, publicly available information, third party sources, etc. Data brokers typically provide three different options for making requests: opt-out, deletion, and right to know.

When exercising your right to access (also known as right to know), you are requesting that a data broker provide you with the categories of information they have sold or disclosed about you. If knowing what type of information a data broker has about you is important, you should exercise your right to know prior to requesting opt-out or deletion.

When you make an opt-out request, you are submitting a request to the data broker to stop providing your data to their customers. Generally data brokers will process an opt-out request by placing you on a suppression list in order to prevent your information from being sold in the future.

Be aware that some data brokers will present unsubscribing from email communications as an opt-out request. This is not a true opt-out request, as unsubscribing from email communications is not a request to stop providing your information to a data broker's customers.

When you make a deletion request, you are requesting that the data broker remove any information they have about you from their database. Some data brokers will also place you on a suppression list in order to prevent your information from being sold in the future. For data brokers that do not place you on a suppression list, your information may be re-added to their database in the future. This will require periodically checking / requesting deletion again if they reacquire your information.

Also known as a Security Freeze, a Credit Freeze allows an individual to control how a consumer reporting agency (credit bureau) is able to sell personal financial identity data.

When you freeze your credit, you are locking your data at the consumer reporting agency until you give permission for the release of the data. A Credit Freeze is the most effective way to prevent financial identity theft, as it places a block in the process of issuing credit. You may still apply for credit if you have a freeze on your credit report, however you must unfreeze your report before doing so. Most credit bureaus offer a "temporary" freeze lift for a specified amount of time at no cost for this purpose.

Generally, consumer reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, Transunion, Innovis, etc.), are not required to comply with state Consumer Privacy Laws, as they are subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Therefore, a Credit Freeze at these organizations is your best option.

You may have noticed we recently added some icons in our table headers and individual rows to enable you to quickly review your status when viewing a list of organizations. A brief synopsis of these icons and what they mean is provided below:

Table Header Icons:

	Signifies a credit or consumer report freeze.
	Signifies an opt-out of the sale or sharing of your information.
	Signifies a deletion of your personal information.
	Signifies a confirmation (from an organization) that your information was not found in their database.

Other Icons:

	Indicates that an action has been completed.
	Indicates that an action has not been completed.
	Indicates that there are notes associated with a specific entry.