Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA-03), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee, joined Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) and Jon Ossoff(D-GA) to introduce the Data Elimination and Limiting Extensive Tracking and Exchange (DELETE) Act to protect Americans’ private online data. The bipartisan legislation would create a system for individuals to request all data brokers, companies that collect personal data for commercial use, delete any personal data the broker may have collected and to not collect it in the future.

“Americans across the political spectrum agree that online companies have nearly total control of the data collected on them, and they’re right,” said Congresswoman Trahan. “Once our phone number, web history, or even social security number gets added to a data broker’s list, it becomes nearly impossible to get it removed. I’m proud to introduce the bipartisan DELETE Act to return power back to consumers by giving each of us the right to have sensitive personal information removed from these lists.”

“People expect privacy and their personal information to be protected,” said Senator Cassidy. “This bill gives Americans a solution to ensure their personal data is not tracked, collected, bought or sold by data brokers.”

“Data brokers are buying, collecting, and reselling vast amounts of personal information about all of us without our consent,” said Senator Ossoff. “This bipartisan bill is about returning control of our personal data to us, the American people.”

The DELETE Act would direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create an online dashboard for Americans to submit a one-time data deletion request that would be sent to all data brokers registered. Under current law, individuals must request removal from each individual data broker to ensure their privacy is protected. This legislation would also create a ‘do not track list’ to protect taxpayers from future data collection.

The full bill text of the DELETE Act can be found HERE.

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