Maryland Data Privacy & Data Broker Removal

Maryland has a comprehensive privacy law that gives you the right to access, delete, and control your personal data. Here is how those rights work in practice and how to remove yourself from data brokers.

Your rights in Maryland

Maryland residents are protected by the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act (MODPA).

• Right to Access & Know — Request a copy of the personal information a company holds about you.
• Right to Correct — Request corrections to inaccurate personal information.
• Right to Delete — Ask a company to delete your personal information.
• Right to Data Portability — Get your data in a portable format you can take to another service.
• Right to Opt Out of Sale — Tell a company to stop selling your personal information.
• Right to Opt Out of Targeted Advertising — Stop companies from targeting you with ads based on your personal data.
• Right to Opt Out of Profiling — Stop companies from building a behavioral profile about you.
• Obtain a list of the categories of third parties to whom data was disclosed
• Right to Appeal — Challenge a company's decision to deny your privacy request.

Does this cover the company that has my data?

Most companies that collect or sell personal data in Maryland are likely covered.

Controls/processes the personal data of 35,000+ Maryland consumers (excluding payment-only data), Or 10,000+ consumers And derives more than 20% of gross revenue from the sale of personal data. Narrow exemptions (no entity-level Hipaa exemption; only a narrow nonprofit carve-out), so Modpa reaches more businesses than most state laws.

How to remove yourself from data brokers in Maryland

Your state law gives you the right to request deletion — but exercising it across hundreds of brokers takes real effort. Here are the most effective steps, in order.

1. Enable Global Privacy Control

Global Privacy Control is a free browser setting that automatically tells every website you visit not to sell or share your data. It takes two minutes to enable and works silently in the background on every site. Maryland law requires covered businesses to honor it — so this is not just a request, it carries legal weight.

2. Submit direct opt-out requests

For brokers not covered by the registry or GPC, you can submit requests directly. Look for the "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" link in each company's website footer — most major brokers have one. You can also submit formal access, deletion, or correction requests through each company's privacy policy page.

Under Maryland's law, covered companies must respond within the statutory deadline. If they don't, you have grounds to file a complaint with the Maryland Attorney General, Division of Consumer Protection.

3. Automate ongoing removal

Here is the part nobody tells you: even after you complete every step above, brokers re-ingest your information from public records, data-sharing networks, and commercial databases. Within a few months, your profiles reappear. Staying removed from hundreds of brokers is not a one-time task — it is an ongoing commitment that most people cannot maintain manually.

Maryland's data broker law: what it means for you

Maryland does not have a dedicated data-broker registry. Most national data brokers are registered in California and honor opt-out requests from residents of any state — but without a Maryland-specific law requiring it, you have no legal recourse if a broker ignores your request. Services like Delist handle this across states and brokers in one place.

Other privacy protections in Maryland

Beyond the comprehensive privacy law, Maryland has additional protections that may apply to you:

• Address protection for officials — This state has enacted address-protection provisions for certain officials — verify the current citation with the state legislature.
• Biometric data — No standalone biometric statute with a private right of action (biometric data — broadly defined as data that can be used to uniquely authenticate identity — is sensitive data under MODPA, AG-enforced).

How to file a privacy complaint in Maryland

Maryland Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division — https://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/Pages/CPD/default.aspx

Most state agencies enforce privacy laws in the aggregate — they investigate patterns of violations rather than resolving individual disputes. Filing a complaint still matters: it creates a record that helps trigger enforcement actions.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• epic.org
• lewisrice.com
• cooley.com
• dwt.com